A Year in the Life of Optimus Prime: Two
by BuckeyeBelle
Summary: Optimus and his crew are three months beyond Chicago. Could things get better? Yes. Stranger? Absolutely.
1. Chapter 1

A Year in the Life of Optimus Prime: Two

By Buckeye Belle, with Vivienne Grainger

Part 1

(A.N. Transformers belongs to Hasbro and whoever they have allowed the rights to it, which certainly doesn't include me. No money has been made from this fanfic and no copyright infringement is intended. All I own are my OCs.

The concept of Seekers' psychological need to fly is not mine, either. I've seen it used several times and believe it to be fanon rather than canon, but I don't know who originally came up with the idea. Whoever it was, if you contact me, I'll gladly credit you.

This story contains religious and spiritual discussion drawn from various religious paths both real and fictional. Those who wish not to be exposed to religions other than their own should turn back now.

This is the third story in The Sidhe Chronicles series. Previous stories are "Swords and Jewels," "The Sidhe Chronicles 2: Dark of the Moon," and "A Year in the Life of Optimus Prime: One." This is a separate AU from the "Come on up for the Rising" verse.

"Normal speech"

::Silent speech (Internal radio or through a bond)::

Scene Break: -Sidhe Chronicles-

Thanks to my beta and co-conspirator, Vivienne Grainger. /A.N)

-Sidhe Chronicles-

(Louisiana Territory, 1682)

Snow crunched under Guillaume Fournier's moccasins, and his breath made fog in the cold air in front of him, as he climbed through the drifts of snow along his trapline.

In the winter of 1682, Guillaume lived a hard life at the extreme edge of European settlement in the New World, near the French outpost of Vincinnes, in what would someday become Indiana. Trapping had not been good this winter, and he, his Miami wife, and their children were hungry.

Guillaume stopped, and dug down through the recent snow to find his trapline robbed: skinned frozen carcases left for the wolves.

When he mastered his fury, Guillaume looked at the prints left in the fresh fall, but could not identify the species. He knew of nothing that large which was three-toed.

The next trap had likewise been plundered, but the carcasses hadn't been there long enough to freeze.

Guillaume smiled; not a nice smile. He was catching up to the thief.

Still, this second theft, and he had resigned himself to further loss, had left him with only one item of value, which he thought that he probably would have to sell thanks to this filthy thief. His father's knife.

Oddly, Guillaume would not be too terribly sorry to part with it; he had never liked it, and he used other blades in preference. Something about it felt wrong whenever he drew it to skin his catch. Maybe selling it would be best either way.

He crept through the trees as he approached his next trap. A human figure was crouched over the trap, studying the carcass of a wolf lying nearby.

Guillaume saw red. He yanked his knife from his sheath and charged, screaming; some words French, some Miami.

The knife, after a first stab in the stranger's back, seemed to come alive in his hand. Guillaume got a second thrust in before his victim threw him off and rolled, coming up with a tomahawk clutched in one hand.

The two adversaries stared at each other in horrified recognition. Guillaume saw, with a shock that was like a blow to his heart, that the man was his wife's own brother, his good friend Black Fox.

Black Fox, whose hepatic artery had been severed by Guillaume's first strike, sank to his knees. "Guillaume...I saw that someone had robbed your trap line..."

Guillaume sobbed, going to his own knees and clasping Black Fox to his heart. "I thought you were the thief. Forgive me, my brother, I did not know it was you!"

Black Fox smiled at him, shuddered, and died in his arms. Guillaume screamed, "No! Oh, no! Blessed Virgin, Great God, Jesus, _no_!"

Wailing in his grief, the friend he had killed in his arms, Guillaume did not see the knife began to glow a sickly blood red, and that color lift from it and coalesce into a cloud of inky blackness. Out of that blackness grew a shadowy, wolf-like form.

Guillaume was sobbing, Black Fox's body in his arms, too lost in grief to hear it growl. When it leapt, it took out his throat before he could mount resistance.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

"Madame Fournier?" said the reeve of Vincinnes.

The Indian woman bowed her head. "My husband," she said in fractured French. "He went to check traps last day, not back yet."

"Guillaume is missing, madame?"

"Yes."

Guillaume's wife went next to her people, to find that Black Fox, too, was missing.

The search mounted for the two men ended in horror.

It was the Miami who found them...in a bloodstained clearing, torn to pieces and half devoured. They assumed, and reported, that a bear had been responsible.

Madame Fournier and her children returned to her people.

That long winter, two more hunters from the village fell victim to the hungry shadow. Demon, the French settlers whispered. Wendigo, the Miami said, and shivered. No one dared hunt alone.

After the second pair of deaths, the village shaman said to his wife, "This - thing, whatever it be - it is not of the Great One. Will you help me to drive it off?"

His wife, the village wise woman, said calmly, "You might do better to ask Cabanokay Fournier. She lost a husband to it, and she has at least as much magic in her as I do."

The shaman gaped at her. "But you don't like her!"

The village wise woman snorted. "And what has that to do with the safety of our village, husband mine? No, Cabanokay has the greater vested interest, so she is the better choice to work with you on this matter."

"Wife," said the shaman, "I adore you."

"That is certainly ... wise ... of you," his spouse said demurely, and they both laughed.

The thing lost its battle with them, but preserved its life, and found a second village.

There, a missionary priest drove it off with no more than faith and a crucifix. But there was always another human settlement; it would, could, and did, live on animals between them, as they were far-flung from one another. It learned to take one or two victims, never more than three, and move on.

At about the same time, the Iroquois destroyed a Miami village. Its only survivor was its medicine man's fifteen-year-old apprentice, Swift Hawk, who had been on a vision quest at the time of the attack.

He returned to find his tribe's lifeless bodies, men, women, children, lying where they had fallen. His mentor among them, there was no one to help Swift Hawk return to everyday consciousness; his psyche, ripped open on the vision quest, would now forever remain half in this world, half in the Other.

In that state, he followed his people's traditional mortuary customs, packed a few belongings - the Iroquois had plundered most of the food from the village - and began a life as a wandering shaman.

His reputation spread, as his power increased, and other shamans grew to fear Swift Hawk, but also called him in for otherwise-insoluble problems.

By the time Swift Hawk was fifty-five, old among the Miami, the energy Guillaume had inadvertently freed from his father's knife had grown to thirty feet tall. Some few who had seen it and lived described it as a bear; other survivors swore it was a wolf.

Swift Hawk had come to The Village of Black Walnuts - it never got another name, simply remained "Kokomo" to the Miami, the French, the British, the Americans - because the creature had gotten careless, and returned to Kokomo only five years after its first visit. Swift Hawk had been nearby, and agreed to see to the creature, or at least to discover what he could about it.

A half-day's journey to the site of the latest murders stopped him in his tracks fifty feet short of the clearing in which it had occurred. He called out to his guide, "Morning Sun! Go no further!"

Morning Sun, himself in training, said, "Swift Hawk, there is no one here," but obeyed him.

"No one here to the eyes of the body. Open the eyes of your soul."

The boy gasped. "I see it! It is not even of the Great One! I had no idea such creatures existed!"

Swift Hawk stalked past him, going very deliberately into the clearing, which bore all the marks of the struggle for life of a pair of Miami. These had been young women, Swift Hawk realized, out gathering early-spring berries for their families. He stopped at a sticky mass of blood, and quite deliberately reached down to touch it.

The sweet scent of femininity he ruthlessly screened out of his perceptions, which rid him of the victim's association. What was left ... was not merely hunger, although it was in fact mostly that, and insatiable with it. It required as well a victim's horror and terror.

It hunted animals when needs must, but its much-preferred prey was human. Swift Hawk also saw that the skinned bodies trappers sometimes found were often its work. It did not need the animal body to survive, although that was often half-eaten as well. It skinned the trapped creature alive, to feed from its pain.

He growled. This ... thing. He did not believe for a moment that he could kill it, but he could perhaps bind it back into an inanimate object. He would employ nothing that a human could find useful; that was what had freed it in the first place.

He rose, and cleansed his hands. "Take me to your medicine man," he said to Morning Sun. "I will do my best for your people."

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Swift Hawk made the rounds of "his" trapline alone. He had purchased the rights to it for a half-lunar cycle from the poorest man in the village; the trapline wasn't very productive.

But it was only the fishing line, so to speak. Swift Hawk himself was the bait.

The moon was setting when he left Morning Sun's village. He had risen before first light, purified himself, set various magical traps about his person, and garbed and equipped himself as needed to work the trapline.

Now, as he crunched his way across the gravel of a stream bed, he was as ready as he could be. He had resigned himself to giving his life to rid The People of this thing, and that allowed him to make several decisions that a person still bound to living could not.

His knife, for example, was primed to suck life-energy from any wound it inflicted. He had sharpened it with great care, and in doing so fell into what later peoples would call "a meditative state." Truly, he was never far from such...but this time he had seen the traces of energy that the creature left behind. He knew it to be a spirit not of this world, a creature of darkness and eternal hunger.

The first trap on the line held a muskrat, still alive. Swift Hawk dispatched and skinned the creature, baited the trap, and removed the carcass some way away, so that wolves or bears would not be attracted to the fresh bait if they found the carcass.

At the third trap, in a crook of the river's elbow, he felt the creature approaching.

Swift Hawk smiled, and drew his knife. He had lived entirely for this battle.

His last prayer was not for survival. "Great One," he said aloud, "all my life I have done my best to serve Your people. Let me come to You successful in my last effort on their behalf."

He reached down to pick up a small stone, black, unremarkable: not flint to be made into an arrowhead, not granite to made into a tomahawk, but simple unusable river rock. Then he went into battle.

The next day Morning Sun found Swift Hawk lying on the river gravel as peacefully as if he had simply stretched out to rest. Many thought that was what had happened; he had been an old man, after all.

But the killings stopped, and no other villages lost trappers or gatherers any longer.

And one small, black stone, unsuited for use as arrowhead or tomahawk, flung into the nearby Eel River with the last of Swift Hawk's strength?

It waited. Years passed, great cities grew up, and the numbers of humans in the area greatly increased. In the cool clear waters of the Eel River, a small black stone, and the thing it contained, waited.

End Chapter 1


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Disclaimers in Chapter 1

(Washington, DC – July 1, 2011)

A sunny Friday afternoon was not a good time to be chained to a desk in Washington, DC, not when Sam's pregnant girlfriend was halfway across the country, on an Army base outside Las Vegas. He had a long list of reading material that his new boss, Charlotte Mearing, had assigned. He had expected a mercy job when he had explained his situation—neither he nor Carly had a job any more, because the companies they worked for no longer existed, and Carly had just discovered her unexpected pregnancy. He had asked for no more than, and would have been grateful for, another mail room position like the last one.

Instead, Mearing had decided to throw him into a crash course as a liaison. She intended for him to be her opposite number—if she was the humans' liaison to the Cybertronians, he could learn to be theirs to Washington.

She told no one that. She simply hired Sam, at a salary that made his eyes bug out.

Sam, out of the loop, decided the job was equal parts public relations, accounting, covert action, and herding cats. He had spent the last six hours absorbing dossiers he wasn't entirely sure Mearing was supposed to be showing him. Certainly, when he finished with them, they disappeared into one of the redoubtable Ms. Li's briefcases, and he never saw them again.

He had no idea if Mearing was acting on orders of the President, or on her own initiative. But either way he was smart enough to figure out that he was being given access to information that no one could _officially_ give Optimus Prime.

Sam let the sometimes-terrifying changes that the All-Spark had wrought in him have full reign, and memorized every scrap of information that Mearing granted him.

At first, still reeling from his own and Optimus' deaths, and their incredible experiences within the Well of All Sparks, Sam had noticed only that he no longer forgot names, appointments, and phone numbers. Later it dawned on him that even if his class notes were lacking in detail, he never had any trouble remembering the lectures when exam time rolled around.

Sam attended an Ivy League school, where his fellow students had no need to take notes in class, or cram like mad for exams.

"Hey, Wicky," one of the football team had said to him. "That three-dimensional equation in geometry. How'd you solve it?"

"Remember when Professor Spalding told us that you add two to the dimensions, and that gives you the order of the equation?"

The player, large enough to cast his literal shadow over Sam on that late-spring, bright day in his junior year, looked surprised, and said, "No, I didn't. A fifth-order equation, huh? I can see how that worked."

After that, after the others in that class had made him the go-to guy for difficult work, he'd been more careful. Careful not to make it look as easy as it was. Careful not to be first in his classes...beyond once in a while, usually on an early pop quiz or the most lightly-weighted of the exams. Second, third, seventh...anywhere in the top ten, or even the top twenty, would do.

The day he remembered most vividly was a Tuesday of his junior year. Marlene Welch, on whom he would have had the world's worst crush if Mikaela were not then in his life, said to him casually, "Why don't you join me at the Chess Club meeting on Tuesday?"

"The Chess Club?"

He'd found someone other than Optimus who could give him a good game, and had joined as soon as he was eligible.

At lunch that same day, a small slender man sat down next to him, and said, "You're Witwicky, right?"

"Yeah. You are?"

"Dean Chandon Grimes, at your service. You got a sport yet?"

"Uh, no. No, I don't."

"Wanna try fencing?"

"Why fencing?"

"Because, my man, any time you got a piece of wood or metal longer than it is wide, you have a weapon, if you know how to fence." Grimes broke open a roll. "And it doesn't take a big man to fence well. In fact, they're sort of in their own way when it comes to our sport."

Two weeks later, one of the fencers said, "Hey Wicky, we're having a party at our house. You wanna come?" And just like that, he was in. He had friends.

"Man," one of them said once, looking at his dorm room, "you don't have much in the way of bucks backing you up, do you?"

Sam snorted. "No. Scholarship kid. You?"

Branks shrugged. "Trust fund baby. Pain in the ass, is what it is."

"I'd think that would be the exact opposite," Sam said. "I had a job as soon as I was old enough, and I worked all the way through high school."

"See, it's a little different for us," Branks said, sitting on the other bed. "I got sent to all the right schools, where I was expected to do the right things, and learn to be a jerk. Chose not to, although I'm taking the trust fund for all the education it'll give me. I want the medical degree, and then I'm headed to Africa. Try to make a difference there. I won't make one if I stay in the Ivy League, and do what I'm told."

"Admirable, Branks, but what's wrong with staying in the Ivies? You'll lead a pretty nice life, if you fill the role." Sam carefully divided a hot burrito, and passed one plate to Branks.

Who snorted, though not at the burrito. "You ever talk to those guys who stay where they should? There's only one thing they're allowed to do, and that's manage money. They get rich, they get cruel and stupid. Happened to my uncle, my dad, my brother. I'm not letting it happen to me. I gotta goal in life, have had since I was a little kid, and so do you. I can tell when your eyes glaze over when the little rich boys start talkin' about their money an' their cars an' their girls. It's not just because you weren't born into that world. It's because they're boring."

Branks had died in Chicago. When Sam remembered their talks, he hoped his friend had been on the road he chose. He didn't know, though. He hadn't been invited to the funeral.

It was senior year that brought home to Sam exactly what the All Spark and the Matrix, between them, had done to him.

Senior year in the Ivy League is a grind. Rote memorization behind them, the seniors are required to demonstrate that they understand the principals first encountered in that memorization, and to apply them in every paper they write.

Sam's mind, though, seemed able to make connections between disparate pieces of information much more easily than his classmates' did. And this new ease of thought did not confine itself to his classes.

He understood, sometimes in a literal flood of realizations, what was going on with world events. How a plant staying open in the Midwest connected with a certain Senator's vote on an issue involving trade with China. Why the Kyoto Protocols were doomed to grind in place without accomplishing anything.

Separate pieces all fell into place to make up a jigsaw puzzle, and the part of Sam's mind that had been ruined by the All-Spark and then repaired by the Matrix watched them come neatly to rest in ways that made sense.

Remembering Sector 7, and Scalpel, Sam realized that this ability, if he were ever unwise enough to let it be known, would endanger him, and Carly, and their unborn child. Maybe even Mikaela.

He had once thought he wanted a normal life, whatever the hell that was. His desire for it burned out his common sense, cost both himself and Optimus their lives.

He learned that hard lesson: his life hadn't been normal since he'd shoved the All-Spark into Megatron's chest four years ago in Mission City, and it never would be again. It took him a while, but eventually, he left denial in Egypt, where it belonged.

Now, even with the ability to correlate facts the Matrix had granted him, he had no idea where he was going. He was traveling uncharted ground, and his girlfriend and their child were on the journey with him.

Sam sighed, and closed the last dossier.

Ms. Li smiled when he returned them to her. "You worked right through lunch, didn't you, Sam?"

"Yeah, it's too hot to go out for anything."

"Oh, it's awful outside. Everyone's complaining about the heat in Nevada, but I'll take dry heat over this humidity any time," Ms. Li agreed. "There's a sandwich shop in the basement that isn't bad. Get a soda instead of the coffee, though."

"Thanks," Sam smiled, and returned all the file jackets. "I'll need these four when I come back."

"Sure thing," Li replied, and with that he headed for the elevator.

A chicken salad sandwich, a bag of cheese curls and a bottle of soda poorer, he settled down at his desk to enjoy an air-conditioned lunch. He called up his chat client, hoping Carly or Bee might be online.

Neither was, and he was about to click over to a different site, when a chat window popped up.

**:**Sam Witwicky? Is that you?

**WitwickyS:**Yup, who is this? Your screen name isn't showing.

**:**Aw, how quickly they forget! It's Jazz.

(Sam's jaw dropped as "Jazzman" popped up as his correspondent's screen name.)

**WitwickyS:**If you're who you say you are, what was the first thing anybody said to me the night when we first met?

**Jazzman:**Boss-bot asked you if you were Samuel James Witwicky, descendent of Archibald Witwicky.

**WitwickyS:**Where are you?

**Jazzman:**That's complicated, Sam.

**WitwickyS:**What do you mean, complicated? Do you know where you are? If you do, how could it be complicated?

**Jazzman:**Yes, I know, but the thing is, I don't exactly have one (there was a pause before more text appeared) location. I'm on the Internet.

**WitwickyS:**WTF? You came back from the Well to the Internet?

**Jazzman:**It ain't as crazy as it sounds, but yeah, I admit it sounds wack.

(Sam stared at the chat box for a moment before he could get his brain hooked back up to his fingers. If he'd been speaking aloud, he probably would have been sputtering something like "What—why—_what?"_ Instead he typed:)

**WitwickyS:**What do you need me to do?

**Jazzman:**I'm using a botnet that I hijacked from some Russians. I need a secure mainframe, or a similar net of PCs, in a secure location to move into.

**WitwickyS:**OK, there are people who can help with that. How can I find you?

**Jazzman:**Probably easier if I find you, just open a chat window when you find something out. I'll be watching for you.

**WitwickyS:**OK. I'm on it.

Sam gulped and picked up the secure line on his desk. He started to punch in Mearing's number, but remembered that she was in a meeting at the Pentagon for the day. He hung up, then dialed Optimus' private line. If this was on the level, Sam didn't think the information should go through half the base before the Prime found out about it. And if it wasn't, if some damn 'Con was using Jazz' name to get in with them somehow, Optimus Prime would want to know about that too.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

(NEST HQ, Mission City, Nevada)

Optimus Prime discovered four years ago that the base's Quonset huts were no place to be during daylight hours. When they lived here before, even with the air conditioning going full blast, it was miserable.

Anywhere outside in the shade was somewhat liveable. In the sun, it was hot, but not that much hotter than the solar ovens known as Quonset huts, and the energy absorbed from solar radiation was well worth the few degrees' difference. For a people who had grown up on a dark planet, with only the dim light of a very small star, sunbathing was an unimaginable luxury. To reach full electrical reserves only from spending some time outdoors, without consuming energon – their poets would have written of it, had they experienced it.

All a Cybertronian had to do was sit in the sun long enough—out of the wind for preference, as getting the grit in the air into one's systems was a misery—and it was actually possible to run the conversion in the opposite direction, producing slightly more energon than used. That reversed conversion was especially easy for smaller bots like the Sisters.

Optimus was too large to do that, but he could come close in Nevada. He rarely had time to simply park outside and enjoy it, but data pads and correspondence could be as easily dealt with outdoors as in.

And out here, he could watch the sparklings playing. They soared above the buildings, enjoying the sun until they got too warm, and then glided down into the shade for a while.

Barricade was keeping an optic on them, likely aware that he was under observation by several of the Autobots, but no longer showing any concern about it. Optimus hoped the once-frontliner had realized that he wasn't the target for any but personal revenge, which had so far not been exacted...and would be punished if it were.

From the peaceful state of his fields, the ex-'Con finally believed he and his three little charges were safe here. Safer, anyway, than anywhere else.

A flashing light on his HUD signaled an incoming call. "Hello, Sam."

"Optimus. You're not gonna believe who just...supposedly...got on my web chat."

"Who?"

"He said he was Jazz, and he knew the first thing you said to me four years ago in Tranquility."

There was a long silence, and finally Optimus said, sounding stunned, "I...don't know what to say."

"You and me both, brother." Sam paused. What could he say now? He hadn't disbelieved "Jazz" when he was talking to him, but this...this was so...

Sam, his voice burdened with equal measures of hope and skepticism, said haltingly, "The words were right, the rhythm was right...given that there's absolutely no possibility of feeling transfer through a computer line, Optimus, it _felt _like Jazz. He says he is now in a hijacked Russian botnet...I know how unlikely this is, how high the odds are stacked against it."

"But if it's true, if it's Jazz, we now know of three who have died, if briefly, and returned to us."

At last, Sam said, "I don't know, Optimus. It _could_ have been Jazz. But I didn't know him that well."

Optimus said, "Hijacking a network from criminals is _exactly_ the sort of thing that Jazz would have taken a great deal of enjoyment from."

"Whoever it is, he said he'd be watching for me to come back on chat."

"Then do so. Text me the address of this chat site, then give me a moment to create an account."

"OK. My screen name there is WitwickyS."

Once Optimus received the text, creating the account to get onto the chat site was a matter of a few seconds' work, and then he messaged Sam.

**OrionPax is on the chat line.**

**WitwickyS:** Who is this?

**OrionPax:** Our mutual friend will recognize this name, but I hope that others who might have an interest in this conversation will not think to search for it.

**WitwickyS: **They'd know to look for me, though.

**OrionPax: **Your connection is quite secure. That you were found in the first place is evidence in our friend's favor.

**Jazzman is on the chat line.**

**Jazzman:** Oh, Primus, Optimus, is that really you?

**OrionPax:** It is. I could ask you the same question.

**Jazzman: **Wanna do what Sam and I did?

**OrionPax: **Very well, and I hope that this will verify my identity to your satisfaction as well. Do you recall, not too long after we rescued Bumblebee following Tyger Pax, that you traded something to neutrals for items that we needed? What were the traded goods?

**Jazzman:** Some high-grade that Sunny and I liberated from a 'Con cache, for parts that Ratchet needed to repair Sideswipe.

**OrionPax: **Primus, Jazz, welcome back. What is your situation now?

**Jazzman:** I'm in a botnet that belonged to a black hat ring in Russia. It isn't secure, and it's too spread out. The individual computers that make up the net keep getting turned on and off unexpectedly.

**OrionPax: **I have advised Wheeljack of your situation. He tells me that we do not have sufficient memory for you to download into our computers here at the base. He is in the process of upgrading them, as a temporary measure until we can prepare a protoform for you.

**Jazzman:** Once I'm back with everyone, we'll talk about the protoform.

**WitwickyS: **Jazz?

**Jazzman:** Let's just say I didn't have exactly the same kind of ride the two of you did. It's...complicated.

**OrionPax:** Jazz, to have you back with us, however it happened, is wonderful. Whatever the difficulty is, we are going to find a way around it.

**Jazzman: **Glad to hear it, Bossbot. See you soon, I hope.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Rumors of Jazz' return flooded the base, but went no further. The base fence had definitely become an "us-and-them" boundary. Optimus was troubled by that, but there was no single, immediate thing to be done about it.

In med-sci, the discussion centered on the mainframe that Wheeljack was building, specifically how it should be designed to best meet Jazz' needs. Since none of them knew what they were doing, and they all knew that, no turf wars took place.

"Think of it as a reformat into a smartship, or a cityplex," Ratchet said, and that became their working paradigm.

Bots were sent to little-used areas on the base, to scour dark corners for all the spare memory and storage that they could get their servos on. The planning team (Wheeljack and Ratchet, mostly) left room for future upgrades wherever possible, knowing that they were probably overlooking details, minor or major as the case may be.

Outside the scientists' domain, there uproar continued, although its focus changed. There was fear that it was a 'Con plot, hope that it wasn't, and anger, choked back and swallowed whole, that others lost over the long vorns of war had not also been returned to them. Optimus tried to steer everyone toward a sense of hopeful caution—until they had more information to go on, there was really no other mindset they could hope to maintain.

Diarwen perched atop Optimus' monitor as he sat at his desk. He didn't know how she had gotten up there. A minute ago she had been leaning against his stylus cup. He had turned his back to get a datapad from a shelf, and when he looked back, she was sitting atop the monitor. As he looked more closely, though, he realized that there were plenty of hand- and footholds for someone her size.

She said, "It sounds as if your friend has chosen to come back as a ghost. Do you have a history of anything like that among your people?"

Optimus put down the datapad. "There are tales of such entities, but I've never seen one. You have to understand, Diarwen, until the All-spark was destroyed, what happened to us after deactivation was a matter of knowledge, not faith. The dead returned to the Well of All-Sparks, to be returned to a new frame by Primus, through the All-spark, when a new protoform was built. Though most sparks give up nearly all of their memories in the transition, they still remained essentially themselves. Enough of us have briefly experienced the Well and returned with similar reports for us to know it to be true. No one would willingly have chosen existence as an unframed spirit when all they had to do was wait for a frame to be presented to the All-spark. Now, everything has changed. There may not be another way to return."

Diarwen nodded. "The same thing—knowledge versus faith, I mean—is true for my people, also. In Tir nan Og, there are places where the veil between worlds is very thin, where the living commonly go to seek counsel from the ancestors. Often they return as ghosts for a while, before it comes time for them to be reborn. I have known human ghosts as well, though few have the will to remain for long, and where they go after they leave here is not known to me. Their own beliefs are varied. Perhaps it depends on which Gods they honor."

The Prime's optics dimmed as he thoughtfully tapped a stylus on the desk. "What kind of life—existence—will Jazz have as such an unframed spirit?"

Diarwen paused to consider. There was no reason to presume that a Cybertronian ghost would experience the mortal world exactly as would a Sidhe or human ghost. "Again, I do not know. His situation seems different than that of ghosts I have known. They had no need to inhabit anything, except that some do need to work through a medium in order to communicate with the living."

Optimus' stylus fell still. "Is this dangerous, to him or to us?"

"There is a possibility that he is dangerous to you, but it is hard to see how you could be dangerous to him, unless some malicious person deliberately turns off the computer and causes damage to the hard drive," she replied. "Do you remember the song of the rusalka that I was singing a few days ago? That rusalka was a real person that I met the Ukraine. She would usually allow no one within arm's length, lest she drain their energy through an accidental contact. Some rusalka have been known to take mortal lovers, and extreme carelessness in bed has been known to lead to the existence the next morning of two ghosts rather than one. But the operative word in that sentence is 'extreme.' Olga went to the opposite extreme, and avoided _all _contact, to her detriment—she needed energy. I commonly raised energy for her until she met a coven of witches who were safe in her presence, and she chose to join them. I don't think a Cybertronian would be at any real risk; you have too much control over your energy fields for that. So does Charlotte Mearing, and I still would like to know how she learned to shield herself as she does. If that is something the CIA is teaching their agents, I would be interested in what else...but I digress. Other humans will have to learn to shield themselves, or avoid contact with Jazz' aura, unless they wish to contribute energy to him. I suspect, though, that Jazz himself will quickly learn enough control to avoid any such accidents. And a _brief_ contact is usually harmless in any case, unless the person is very weak. It takes several hours for such an energy drain to be dangerous to a healthy adult. Most people describe the energy drain as a severe chill, which tends to limit contact all on its own—though one never knows to what use an inventive person might put an ice cube," she said, with a naughty grin.

Both of them laughed, but then Optimus observed, "All that assumes that the ghost involved _wants_ to do no harm."

She dangled one graceful foot in front of the monitor screen. "Of course, but your friend is still going to be essentially the same person you have known for millennia. If you trusted him before, you can trust him now. In battle, a forced drain will be one weapon available to him if he can knock an enemy unconscious quickly enough, though other weapons will probably prove more effective."

Optimus said, "Pardon an indelicate question, Diarwen, but if ghosts are beings of pure energy, how could they take human lovers?"

Diarwen smiled. "Mine is very much a fertility religion, Optimus, so indelicate questions in the pursuit of knowledge are not only allowed, but encouraged. The answer lies in a difference between rusalka and most other ghosts—rusalka can project the illusion of solidity. Olga felt to me like touching a marble statue on a winter's day—a marble statue that moved as a human would have done. When she drew energy, the illusion became extremely realistic."

"Interesting. It certainly gives an entirely new level of importance to the humans' concept of safe sex, though."

Diarwen snickered.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

It took Wheeljack a few hours before he was satisfied that the mainframe was ready, at least as temporary quarters, for Jazz.

Wheeljack's lab was too small to accommodate all those who wished to witness Jazz' homecoming: only Ratchet, Optimus, Mirage and himself, with Diarwen and Lennox safely on a table, could be inside. All the others who were not assigned duty elsewhere were crowded around the open door.

Optimus logged into Sam's chatline, which Sam had been keeping open, occasionally talking to Jazz to keep him occupied while they waited. Wheeljack then logged the mainframe into the chatline.

It took a long time to download a Cybertronian's memory from the Internet. They had a great high-speed military connection with Sam's office, but the same couldn't be said for a Russian bot-net, and Jazz was using every trick he knew to avoid notice: sending a download of this immensity would inevitably attract unwanted attention. The first thing he had run into was a DARPA black hole meant to prevent Russian botnets from getting into dot-gov addresses in the first place, and he had no intention of doing anything that might disrupt those defenses. That necessitated sending his download the long way around, through a number of intermediate systems that all had to be secured. Mirage came online with him and sent his shadow onto the net to guard his old comrade, especially during the last, critical phase when Jazz had very little presence left in the botnet. Once Jazz' shadow had left it, Mirage quickly distributed a virus that cleaned all traces of the botnet from the infected computers, then returned to his frame.

Jazz' psyche interpreted waking up his mainframe as onlining after a long period of stasis. It took him a moment to figure out that the lab had been filled with cameras and sensors of all sorts, so that he in no way felt trapped in a box.

Instinctively he reached out to his friends—and recoiled in horror as he realized he was drawing energy from them. His fields retreated entirely within the mainframe, so that even someone touching it would be safe.

Optimus' strong field surrounded him, deliberately allowing Jazz to draw a little energy to ground himself, but still providing the control that Jazz needed to feel confident allowing the contact at all. The Prime was thankful that Diarwen had taught him that much, the very beginning of techniques of psychic shielding that she had told him would take centuries to fully master. Obviously if such rudimentary defenses were sufficient, casual contact was not going to be dangerous.

As a scout, Mirage had defenses that were far stronger. He joined the clan bond—but then suddenly took control of it, slamming past Jazz' defenses which at the moment were tuned to keep himself in, not other people out. After only a nanoklick, Jazz defended himself and kicked Mirage out so hard his frame ended up on its aft in the real world. "What th' frag!"

Mirage held up a servo to prevent anyone else from taking rash action, as he sent a stream of contrite glyphs. "_Mi dispiache. _I had to know for certain that it was really you, _paisan_."

Jazz centered himself. "'Course you did, Raj. Easy, Optimus, he was right to do that. Now I _know_ I'm home."

-End Chapter 2-


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Disclaimers in Chapter 1

In a motel suite on the outskirts of Kokomo, a group of four people who didn't look anything like business or government road warriors temporarily made the place their home and office space.

Oh, there were briefcases and laptop computers scattered around, but only the group's leader fit the dark suit and Ray-Bans, short haircut, bulge under jacket image of government agents. Beyond that, he was black and middle-aged, and people who knew him casually gave Tyler LeGrand no shit of any kind whatsoever.

The fellow sitting next to him was half again Tyler's height, and had the physique of a linebacker. His features were large and coarse. Most observers would have pegged him immediately as "not white," but if pressed, could not go beyond that. His skin was brown, but that could have been easily explained by a lifetime spent outdoors on the land, for his big meaty hands were scarred and callused from years of hard work. That he had a military background was obvious from his attitude, the way he carried himself, his flattop haircut, and the bulldog tattoo on his bulging right bicep. His accent gave him away as being from somewhere in Europe.

There were probably half a dozen people alive who would have known at first glance that there was Fomori blood in his ancestry.

Today, for all intents and purposes, he was Gunnery Sgt. Erik Brown, USMC, retired, though he also would answer to the name Arag.

Across the table from Arag sat a lady of a certain age, demurely dressed in a blue pantsuit, sensible shoes, and a flowered silk blouse, with a string of beads peeking from the collar, who might have looked at home in a library. Adele Hempstead's large black handbag, though, told another story: it held a Beretta Px4 9mm pistol, packets of herbs, crystals, tarot decks, and what Adele thought of as her "kit," where she kept the truly arcane New Age odds and ends. It also held her compact, lipstick, comb, and pictures of her children and grandchildren. It both was and emphatically was not your average grandmother's purse.

The last of the quartet floated above the table, occasionally disappearing and reappearing to look down at one laptop screen or another. None of his companions paid any attention to the fact that they could see through him, or for that matter, that he was floating above the table in the first place. Nathan Stoughton's appearance could vary according to his whim, but today he wore the clothing typical of an 18th century New England youth, which had been his last life.

The images on the laptop screens were horrific. The producers of a slasher film would have been envious, but these pictures were all too real; the fact of the matter, however, was that they seemed to have nothing to do with Bureau 13. LeGrand said, "OK, let's go over what we have one more time and make sure this isn't our kind of case before we kick it all over to the FBI."

Adele summarized, "Our first victim was Lucas Jenner, 43, pharmaceuticals sales rep. Discovered in a ditch two hundred yards from the US 31 rest stop just north of here. Killed approximately three weeks ago. The victim was skinned alive by an as-yet-unidentified weapon, and partially dissected, apparently by the same weapon, before being half-devoured while still living by an also as-yet-unidentified large animal such as a bear."

Arag continued, "Second victim, Lisa Bowen, aged 26 years, a jogger found near Rossville. Same thing happened t' her as th' sales guy. Th' medical examiner said she's been dead 'round two weeks."

Nathan said, "The third victim, James Lee Burnett, age 17, was killed while working as a pizza deliveryman near Corwin, Indiana, five days ago. Again, the same circumstances apply."

Nathan had never told any of them how he could be audible when he wasn't physical, but it had ceased to trouble any member of Sector 13 long ago. Nathan continued, "This is definitely a strange case, Tyler, but so far nothing indicates that it's a _Sector 13_ case. It is my opinion that this is a human with a nasty pet."

Tyler said, "I tend to agree. There's a lot about this case that bothers me. This isn't our boy's first rodeo—the killings show all the hallmarks of an organized, very careful perp. The wounds are identical, victim to victim. The dissection is careful and methodical. We have no physical evidence—no DNA, no fibers, nothing. If this perp is human, he's male: Jenner was a large individual. He wouldn't have stood still to be skinned alive, and few women are large enough to overpower a man his size.

"Wherever our perp was killing before, it wasn't here. But I can't find similar cases anywhere in the world. And how does someone drag a bear around without attracting attention?"

"We don't know there's a bear, for certain," Nathan said.

Tyler nodded. "Yeah. The alternative, that it's the unsub himself – that puts it in our ballpark. So while I can see how this case got sent to us in the first place, I see no evidence of anything up our alley. I think we need to turn this over to a BAU unit to track the unsub, then they can call in whatever backup they need."

Adele asked, "What does BAU stand for again? It's difficult to remember all the alphabet soup."

"Behavioral Analysis Unit," Tyler explained with a patient smile, as he had done before, and doubtless would again. "FBI profilers."

The sensitive closed her computer with a snap. "Shall we see to supper, then? I believe I saw a Cracker Barrel. I love Cracker Barrel."

Nathan gestured, and the TV remote flipped right side up. He began to channel surf.

Tyler told him, "There better not be any porn on the room service bill, Nate!"

"Would I do that?"

"You did the last time we were in LA. Do you know what a hell of a time I had explaining that crap? If I have to start getting parental controls put on the motel televisions, so help me—!"

Nathan laughed. "All right, Tyler, I shall be perfectly virtuous while you're gone."

"You better be after I get back, too," Tyler told him with a grin.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

(July 2, 2011, Mission City, Nevada)

Charlotte Mearing and Sam Witwicky climbed off the helo that had brought them from Nellis, and ducked to run under its rotors to the shade of the nearest hangar. Since Ms. Li had remained ensconced in her Washington office, the job of carrying Mearing's briefcases had fallen to Sam, so he had both hands full when Bee brought Carly up. Mearing relieved him of the briefcases so that he could greet his family properly.

Mearing left her young assistant talking to his guardian and fiancee, while she joined Prime, Lennox, Epps and Ironhide inside the Quonset hut. The doors were propped all the way open on both ends and a couple of huge fans were going full blast, making it more of a wind tunnel than anything else, but it was somewhat cooler than it had been the last time she was here. "Sam told me what happened, but I have to say, I'm not even sure where to begin asking questions!"

Lennox told her, "Things like this tend to happen around here. You'll get used to it."

"Lord, I hope not," she replied. "There are some things you just _shouldn't_ get used to."

Epps said, "Amen, sister. No matter how many times something like this happens, it's still a miracle."

In the sun and heat outside the hut, Sam kissed Carly. "I'll try to meet you at the apartment later and spend some time before I go back to DC, but no promises. I'm sorry."

He was familiar with Mearing's workaholic habits, but felt in no position to complain when she had rescued him from the unemployment line. He would have understood, though, if Carly had been upset by his absence.

Carly, however, smiled, a proud look in her eyes. "I know. Your job is important, Sam, I understand. If you can't come home, then call me later."

"Will do," he grinned. He kissed her again, grateful that she was who she was, and then he and Bumblebee had to hurry to catch up as the group followed Optimus to Jazz' new quarters.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Jazz' mainframe had been moved into a larger room which was not cluttered with Wheeljack's experiments. Mirage and Bumblebee had work spaces there as well. With the addition of Jazz, the scouts' lair was taking shape once again.

Diarwen and Mirage were already inside. She had been telling Jazz everything that she could remember about Sidhe and human ghosts, and they had been trying to figure out how much of that applied to Jazz.

Mirage knew a wealth of stories about paranormal phenomena on Cybertron, but they were all myth and legend. They had no way but trial and error to separate the kernels of truth from the fiction.

Mirage said, "We established yesterday that there is no real difference between a ghost, and a living Cybertronian's shadow on the web."

Jazz said, "Close enough, anyhow. You didn't have no trouble hacking me."

"_Si, paisan,_ and you had no trouble stopping me either!"

Jazz' rich laughter boomed out from his speakers. "Ah might've taught you everything you know, Raj, but Ah never taught you everything _Ah_ know!"

That was when Optimus and the rest came in. The bots gave the humans a courteous lift to the table where Diarwen was sitting. She could easily jump ten feet to the floor, so she fearlessly perched right on the edge, her feet swinging over thin air. Only Lennox had the jump training to do the same sort of thing with little chance of breaking something. Sam and Mearing carefully stayed farther from the drop-off.

Optimus noted the room's new addition since last night. A holoform projector had been placed atop the mainframe, so that Jazz could project an image of himself. Cybertronian communication was typically a combination of vocalization, field fluctuations and body language. The holoform allowed for the first and last of those—his fields seemed unchanged. If Optimus had shuttered his optics, he could have told the difference between Jazz' energy field, and those of Wheeljack and Mirage who were standing nearby, only because Jazz' field did not center around a living spark. However, its emotional fluctuations, as well as the patterns that made it uniquely Jazz, were the same as they had been when he was embodied among them.

Optimus said, "Director Mearing, may I present Jazz."

Jazz' holoform turned to face her. "Pleased to meet ya, Director."

The Prime told them, "The two of you should have a lot in common. Director Mearing came to us by way of the CIA. Director, Jazz was my second in command and head of Covert Operations."

Mearing had pulled the reports from the Mission City battle as soon as she had been informed of Jazz' return. The small silver mech had taken on Megatron himself, and died doing it, but he had accomplished his objective of delaying the tyrant long enough for Sam to escape with the All-spark.

There were times when the mission was everything.

Yes, she and their new phantom were going to understand one another just fine. "A pleasure to meet you as well, Jazz."

He nodded, then the familiar blue visor turned to Optimus. "Ah guess we really oughta wrap up the welcome home party, Bossbot. There's a reason why Ah'm back."

And with that, the Autobots present all dropped right back into old, familiar patterns, as though Mission City had never happened. "Report."

"Ah got let out because Soundwave pulled the same stunt—only he had his options lined up before he got himself offlined."

Bumblebee let out a loud squawk in Cybertronian, then apologized for the outburst.

Mirage explained to Jazz, "Que, Bee and I were taken prisoner by Soundwave during the Battle of Chicago. At first he was going to turn us over to Megatron. We expected to be used in an exchange of prisoners, as we had every other time. But then, Soundwave and his human friend, Gould, put their processors together, and the next thing we knew we were lined up to be shot. If two of our minibots had not acted at the moment they did, _paisan, _we would have joined you in the Well rather than the other way around. Bee took advantage of the distraction to deal with Soundwave. We had rather hoped it was permanently."

Ironhide growled, "We can fix that. Where is the slagger?"

Jazz said, "Well, that's the problem. Ah don't remember."

"What do you mean, you don't remember?"

"It ain't that easy, Hide! Ah was in the Well for, what, a twentieth of a vorn? When Ah was there, it felt—_normal_. But now, looking back, Ah don't remember all of it, and what Ah do remember, there just ain't words in Cybertronian or English for that. Ah can tell you that, yeah, it's what the priests always said, this wonderful place where you're reunited with everyone who passed on before. But if Ah try to tell you _exactly _what it was like—slag, if Ah even try to _remember_ exactly what it was like—there ain't no way. So, Ah know now that when Ah was there, Ah knew where Soundwave was and what he was plannin', enough to know Ah had to come back and stop him before he reorganizes the 'Cons and starts th' war all back up again. And there are more 'Cons out there—just like there's a lot more of our people who ain't made it to Earth yet. But now, Ah've lost most of the fraggin' details!"

Optimus said, "That's the way it seems to work, Jazz. It was the same for me."

Sam nodded. "Same here. It's a different reality on that side."

Diarwen looked back and forth between Sam and Optimus. "Wait—what?" she asked.

Sam said, "You haven't heard that part? Umm—Optimus, you want to tell her or you want me to?"

"It was hardly a credit to either of us, so I don't think it matters," Optimus replied.

"Don't you go taking the blame—I was a complete fuckin' idiot and there's no way that was your fault. Diarwen, this was a couple of years ago, I was in college, and I thought, hey, we saved the world at Mission City, now I get to kick back and enjoy one long spring break. I got myself and the lady I was with at the time grabbed by the 'Cons. Optimus and Bee bailed us out before that little 'Con Scalpel could cut my head off—I don't know if I ever thanked you for that, by the way, so _thank you—_but while we were trying to get the hell out of there, we got jumped by Megatron, Starscream, and some other 'Con I didn't know."

"That was Grindor," Optimus said. "You were not the only idiot, Sam, I was the one who thought that I could slip into Princeton to meet with you and get back out before I was noticed, if Bumblebee and I went alone. Afterward, I assumed that I could outrun Megatron and rendezvous with the rest of the team." The Prime paused, and looked down at his own peds, to Sam's astonishment; he had _never_ seen Optimus do that before. "If once we had retrieved you, I found us a defensible place nearer Princeton to wait for Ironhide and the others, none of the rest of it would have happened."

Ironhide admitted unwillingly, "I probably woulda made the same call in your place. Optimus, you couldn't a' known how many more 'Cons Megs had with him in Princeton."

Lennox nodded grimly. "Yeah, coulda, woulda, shoulda. If there'd been a dozen of them and you'd holed up, it would've been Butch and Sundance against the Bolivian Army. No sense going back over a call like that."

Diarwen's skin crawled as she figured out where the story was going. Megatron and Optimus would have been fairly evenly matched at that time, but add Starscream to the mix, and then this other Decepticon as well... "I take it that...battle...did not go well."

Sam and Optimus were both more embarrassed by the entire episode than anything else, but the other bots' auras told Diarwen another story entirely. Ironhide's fields were tightly controlled, but what little she could read was a marker of intense pain; no father should ever see his son lying lifeless.

Some of those present still struggled with anger and grief, and that left Diarwen—and Jazz as well—dealing with strong emotions: their own, as well as everyone else's.

Diarwen did not know how Jazz was faring, but she could feel the hot tears start. "You both—"

Sam went on with the rest of the tale. Optimus' death. The Tomb of the Primes. The Matrix. His own death. Meeting with the Ancient Primes, something that neither of them could describe in any more detail than Jazz had been able to report his own experiences, and then, against all hope and common sense, arriving back on this world to end the Fallen before he could bring about his plans to destroy the earth's sun.

Diarwen barely heard any of it. She felt like she had been struck by lightning. Two years ago—all this happened just before she and Optimus first met. It was a gift of the Gods that she had him in her life at all. And now, faced with the tale of his death, she knew suddenly that the thought of facing the rest of her existence in this world without him was unbearable.

She cursed herself for a fool. Diarwen ni Gilthanel, Knight of the Queen's Own Guard, terror of the Inquisition, spy for the American government in nearly every war for more than two centuries, had allowed herself to fall in love with someone that she could _never _have. Even if he were willing to enter into a relationship with her, there was no physical way they could ever be together.

Down that way lay heartbreak for her, and trouble that she did not need to bring to Optimus. She realized that the only thing she could do was keep her feelings to herself and give thanks for the friendship that they could share. She closed her own aura down tightly, and dealt with her feelings.

Optimus' voice yanked her from her reverie. "And that's how it happened," he said, obviously summing up, "and what it taught us. Now, about Soundwave?"

Mirage said, "This is hardly the first time we have had to act on incomplete information concerning him. If Soundwave is out there on the Internet, he will leave traces. We've tracked him down before, no? We can do so again."

Jazz' holoform nodded. "Right."

Mearing said, "We can utilize the Echelon system. The Decepticons never considered it to be a threat, so they're unlikely to be on guard against it."

Optimus said, "Certainly, that's worth trying. Ops will compile a list of keywords for you. It may be that we can draw Maggie Madson and Glenn Whitmann back into the fold. Their knowledge of the intricacies of the human Internet may prove invaluable."

The director nodded. "I'll make them an offer. There's talk at Rand about downsizing, so they may be amenable."

Jazz said, "Give me a day to program mah shadow, then Ah'll be ready to go hunting."

Optimus said, "Jazz, you didn't seem to think it would be successful when we spoke yesterday about getting you a protoform."

"Oh, Ah'll be able inhabit a frame, Optimus, same as this computer, soon as Ratch an' Jack can build me one, but...if you think that means Ah'd be back with you just like before Ah died, no. It'll be more like ridin' around in a drone. Better than this, but...you know why Ah ain't sparked here."

Optimus' voice held a wealth of compassion and understanding. "Prowl."

"Ah can only be here as a ghost, unless mah sparkmate can come back too. That might happen, somehow, someday. Till then—mah spark's the only place it can be, with him."

Wheeljack's field took on an air of thought, and Optimus sent a query. Wheeljack replied, ::Nothing pertinent to the immediate discussion, Prime. I was merely thinking that we should build a new frame for Prowl as well, just in case. I'd rather not raise false hopes for Jazz by making an issue of it.::

::I see no harm in having one or two extra basic protoforms on hand. We will undoubtedly need one at some point. There is no need to make it obvious that one of them is intended for Prowl until and unless we have cause to do so.::

::Very well, Prime. I'll put that into motion.::

When the meeting broke up, Mearing took her briefcases back from Sam. "It's a holiday weekend, so the office will be closed until Tuesday. Why don't you spend the weekend here with Carly? Call me Monday afternoon and I'll tell you then if I need you to stay and coordinate things here, or come back to DC."

"Yes, sir!" Sam grinned. Charlotte waited until his back was turned before she let a smile cross her face, then climbed aboard the waiting helo.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

(Kokomo, IN)

The morning of the Fourth of July dawned threatening rain. Eleven-year-old Johnny Ames looked up and said, "Aw! It's gonna rain out the fireworks tonight."

His mother looked up from her pancake batter. "If it does, then they'll have the fireworks on the eighth. Go wake up your brother and get ready for breakfast, or I'll feed your pancakes to the hogs!"

She laughed as Johnny pelted up the stairs to get his older brother, Pete.

An hour later, the boys were dressed in their summer uniform of ripped jeans and tee shirts and old sneakers. They jumped on Pete's bike, Johnny balanced on the handlebars holding their fishing poles, and Pete stood up to push harder and get the bike moving.

Their favorite fishing spot was near a culvert where US 31 crossed a creek. That creek was full of bluegill, and the occasional small catfish. The boys hauled the bike and their fishing gear down the bank to the creek.

Soon they had their fishing lines baited with plastic worms, and cast out into the stream. But they were little boys, without much patience to wait for fish to bite. Soon fishing gave way to wading, rock-throwing and splashing. Wet, muddy, and grinning ear to ear, the brothers made their way to the opening of the concrete culvert.

Johnny leaned his head into the musty-smelling pipe and yelled "Whoo!" to hear the echoes.

The little sunlight that filtered into the pipe reflected off something a few feet back. Johnny couldn't tell what it was. He ventured closer, then saw that the reflection was from something silvery under the water. It was a thin cylinder about a foot long, wickedly sharp on one end. The other end was broken off and full of mud. He brought it out into the sun where he could see it better and washed the mud off. Inside the metal tube, he could see broken wires, some thin tubes, and a metal rod of some kind. "Look at this, Pete!"

His brother joined him. "What is it?"

"Dunno. I found it in the pipe."

"Busted piece of junk—but it sure is sharp."

"Let's see if there are more pieces of it," Johnny suggested.

The boys returned to the culvert, leaving the piece of metal lying on the bank near Pete's bike. They found another tube like the first one, then Pete bent over to pick up something small. "Whoa! Look at this!"

Pete's find was undoubtedly a hand, less than half the size of either of their own, with each small finger twisted and broken, but still recognizable.

Johnny poked it. "Do you think it's a toy someone threw away?"

"Naw, it looks too expensive for that," Pete said. "Toys are made out of plastic. I think it's a robot. It probably came from one of the auto plants down in Kokomo."

"I wonder if somebody stole it? I wonder if there's a reward for it?"

"Let's see if we can find any more of it."

"I'll bet it washed out in the rain. Let's look outside the culvert and see if there's more of it there."

They turned around and went back outside. Just under the pipe was a black, blocky thing with stumps where things had been twisted and broken off. "Here's part of it, Pete!"

The older boy got down on his knees in the water to reach for something else in a deep spot. "Here's more. Yahh!" He dropped the thing when he got a look at it. It was a head, the size of his fist, with two eyes and a mosquito-like face. Saying a word that his mother would not have approved of, Pete reached into the water again for the head and fished it out.

Johnny said, "Cool! I think there's more of it, though. It looks like the hand and the head go on this piece I found, but there's nowhere for these pointy things to hook on."

"Let's keep looking downstream."

Further search was to no avail. The boys reluctantly agreed that the last rain had probably washed the rest of their robot all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico.

They laid out what they'd been able to find on their dad's workbench in the garage, still arguing about what it was. Pete got out his cell phone and took a short video and some pictures.

Johnny asked, "What're you gonna do with those?"

"Post 'em! Somebody has to know what it is!"

Their mom yelled, "What are you kids doing out there?"

"Just cleaning the mud off Pete's bike!" Johnny yelled back. He turned to his brother and said quietly, "She'll think it's got germs, she'll make us get rid of it!"

Pete stood on a chair to get a plastic box down, and stuffed the winter clothes it contained into a trash bag, which in turn went under the work bench. "Here, we'll put it in this."

With the evidence hidden, they got a bucket and some rags. When a suspicious Mrs. Ames came out to the garage to check on them, she found them working on the bike. She shrugged and told them, "Lunch will be ready in a few minutes, then get changed. Your dad's picking you up at two."

"What's for lunch, Mom?"

"Marzetti."

They hurried with the bike and ran to wash up for lunch. Marzetti was not to be kept waiting.

End Chapter 3


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Disclaimers in Chapter 1

(July 5, 2011, Mission City, Nevada)

Diarwen woke up early Friday morning. It was a long weekend; since the holiday had come on Thursday everyone who could had taken Friday off. Half the camp had left for Vegas, and a few more—families with small children in search of quieter celebrations—had gone to Tranquility for the weekend.

Most of the those still on base were grouchy because they were on duty for the weekend while everyone else was off having a good time.

There had been some discussion about taking the sparklings to see Tranquility's fireworks show, but Barricade had been afraid the large, loud fireworks would bring up bad associations for them. Instead, they had watched the Washington DC fireworks show on the big screen with the sound turned down, and then some of the soldiers had set off a few firecrackers and bottle rockets for them on the tarmac outside—_little_ fireworks that went "pop" rather than "kaboom." And then they had been allowed to tire themselves out flying under the stars.

Other than Barricade, the former 'Cons had taken full advantage of their late curfew and the freedom to race in the desert. Flareup, Arcee and the Big Twins had been watching them, more to pacify the humans than out of any real expectation that the mechs would make a run for it. They had come back to the old arsenal without complaint and settled down for recharge, and their watchdogs headed into Vegas to join the festivities on the Strip.

After that, the camp got quieter than it had been since they moved in. Diarwen found that she couldn't sleep because it was _too_ quiet. She had got used to the sounds of mechs and soldiers going about their duties 24/7. With only a skeleton crew on duty, most of those sounds were absent.

A persistent coyote's serenade to the crescent moon was the last straw. Growling, she dived under her pillow for a while, but it was insufficient to the task: she could still hear the canine chorus.

The Sidhe got up, got dressed, got her gloves and went to the central hangar in search of a midnight snack.

Jazz' light was on and his door was open. She rinsed her milk carton and stepped on it before putting it in the trash can, then stopped and tapped on the door frame before walking in.

Jazz' holoform flared up. "Evenin', Diarwen."

"I do not mean to interrupt, but I saw your light on."

"No problem. C'mon in."

She crossed the room, more out of habit than intentional stealth stepping softly lest her footfalls echo in the empty space. He apologized, "Sorry Ah can't give ya a lift up on something."

She grinned, took a run, and jumped to catch a drawer pull several feet over her head. From there she easily climbed to the counter-top, took a playful bow, then sat on the edge of a bot-sized data pad.

"Kinda late for y'all, ain't it?"

"It is that. At first it was too quiet with the camp so empty—and then the coyotes began to howl. Do you no longer feel the need to recharge?"

"Not like when Ah was online. There's a steady supply of electricity, so Ah don't need to shut down to recharge. Ah'm usin' these hard drives just like Ah would've my own memory, though. Ah'll eventually need to defrag 'em. Ah think Ah'll probably go through some kinda rest cycle to do that. When Ah get mah frame, it'll be more like normal, Ah hope."

"Yes, the more that daily life can be kept normal, the better."

"Voice of experience?"

"I am still quite among the living, my friend. But I am the last of my kind on this earth."

"Ya look like a human," Jazz said, in a questioning tone.

She told him of the Sidhe, and how the Inquisition had hounded them until the survivors had fled to Tir nan Og. She left out the rest of it, two hundred years of warfare against the Inquisition, fifty years in an Ireland where she no longer had a place, then another break with all that she had known to come to America. "I know what it is to be Other, and to be apart from loved ones."

"But that's always true. There are always gonna be some here, some there—til all are one."

She nodded. "Yes, Jazz. That is true. Would you tell me of this bondmate who holds your spark for you?"

Jazz' holoform smiled. "Tellin' you about Prowl, now that's like tryin' to describe a sunset. Don't know if you know what Ah mean when Ah tell you he had a battle computer?"

"No, I do not."

"It's a subprocessor that's always busy calculatin' odds, or comparin' possible outcomes and assignin' favorability ratings, that kinda thing. The mechs who had 'em tended t' suppress emotion in favor of logic, because they were damn well almost never wrong when they thought somethin' through. Lotta people thought they didn't have emotions 'cause o' that. Wasn't true, but you hadda get t' know 'em pretty well before you found that out. You hadda be there when they could afford not t' be logical, and with a war on..."

"….Aye."

"Prowler, he was our...well, the closest English term Ah can find is the provost marshal. He was in charge of base security, and that meant we worked together a lot, 'cause he was busy keepin' the 'Cons from doin' to us what Ah was doin' to them. We were oil and water. Let's just say Ah kinda consider rules as guidelines, y'know? In the field, sometimes ya gotta improvise. Now, Prowl...he had a different point o' view. For a long time, I was a pain in his aft, and he gave as good as he got."

"Opposites do attract."

"Oh, yeah. Finally, we figured that out, and we had a lotta good vorns after we stopped tryin' to one-up each other. Ah was his spontaneity, an' he was mah common sense. Til...Iacon Ridge.

"That...wasn't a battle...it was a Pit-be-damn' apocalypse. We had a cityformer, Metroplex. They had Trypticon, a living space station. Imagine two hurricanes fightin' it out and ya pretty much got it. The rest of us tried t'stay out of their way an' take potshots at each other. And Metroplex lost. Prowler figured out that Trypticon had a weakness, the heat vents for his power cores. He climbed the fraggin' thing and set charges to blow the heat vents—left Trypticon damaged bad enough for us to finish him off—but Prowl couldn't get out of the blast zone. He knew all along there was no way he could. Ah knew Ah'd go when he did, or not too long after...so when someone had to slow down Megsy at Mission City, it just made sense for it t'be me, since Ah wasn't gonna be here that much longer anyhow."

"I understand. Yet, you came back..."

"Oh, me an' Soundwave go _way_ back. Autobots ain't got nobody else who can counter him. After he's taken care of, then maybe Ah'll go home. We'll see how things are goin' then. Ah hope before Ah did this, Ah thought about how hard it'd be for everybody to have me back, then..."

Diarwen smiled. "I am quite sure that you _did_ think it through, Jazz. And talked it over with Prowl as well. Everyone understands that no one is complete when separated from their sparkmate. Even those among us who are close to your people understand that now. You would not have made such a decision lightly. In what you have lost through the veil, lies the full explanation. Faith bridges that gap. Have faith that all will make itself known in due time."

Jazz' holoform nodded, his visor brightening. "You're right. Prowl woulda stuffed me in a locker 'til I got my helm on straight if I hadn't a-convinced him it was a good idea," he replied.

"Are you doing anything where I might make myself useful?"

"Don't think so, just ordinary data mining. Ah'm lookin' through a random selection of images posted on social media sites, t' see if a 'Con shows up in the background. You'd be surprised how easy it is t' forget there are cameras around everywhere. Often, those images end up on the Internet for some completely unrelated reason. There's too many of 'em to really look at, so Ah run image recognition in th' background, and only pay attention t' th' ones that get flagged. Well—I guess you could help me look at those, I'll just throw 'em up on the monitor here. Like this one, here's a logging truck like the one you and Prime said Lugnut's usin' as an alt now."

"That cannot be him, not unless he has had some work done," she said. "Optimus left a punch dagger in him, then Blitzwing flew away with him—that marked him as well, I should think!"

Jazz laughed at the image of Lugnut dangling from Blitzwing's claws like a fish caught by an osprey. "Where were you when all this was goin' on?"

She drew her dagger and called fire to it. "Fool he was, that seeker tried to carry me off as well, but he let me go smartly enough when I put this in his knuckle." She extinguished the blade and sheathed it.

"That ain't real common among humans," Jazz said, suddenly focusing a great deal more attention on her.

Diarwen said, "I do not know what scanning abilities Ratchet has given your temporary form, but feel free. We of the Daoine Sidhe are not human at all, but another species native to the land of Tir nan Og, whence my people have gone. The process humans refer to as "magic" is our birthright. I am recovering from an injury to that ability which I took while closing Sentinel's gate. What I have shown you is near the limit of my present powers."

"Never saw an organic like you before."

"Have you seen many different types of organics? It seems that we are quite foreign to most of the others."

"Ah'm a scout. Been on a lot of planets, met lots of different kinds of folks. None with fire powers."

"Elemental abilities," she corrected. "Are you familiar with the five magical elements—air, fire, water, earth and spirit?"

"Ah was taught there were seven—add metal and wood, for the two kinds o' life in th' galaxy."

"Aye, that makes sense...most Sidhe witches have an affinity with one of the elements, and mine is with fire. Who taught you magic? I had thought that was lost to your people?"

"Not magic, not if you mean casting spells like what you just did with your dagger. Prowl was a martial artist, and Ah learned a lot from him."

"If his training was anything like the Eastern martial arts of Earth, some of that may be closer to magic than you know, but I have no expertise with those styles," the Sidhe freely admitted.

"Give me a minute, Ah think Ah found something—holy slag!"

Diarwen waited patiently for a few moments, then Jazz put a video up on the monitor. Obviously shot by an amateur with a cell phone, it was inside a garage. The shaky image centered on a workbench. The head, thorax, one arm and two legs from a minibot medic were laid out on the bench. A boy's voice narrated, "Well, here it is, me and my brother found this robot in a creek. I hope somebody can post and tell us what kind of a robot it is, and where it came from."

Diarwen said, "That looks like the Decepticon Scalpel that Sam described."

"No, that's Hook, see that scar down the side of his face? Ah oughta recognize it, that's where Ah kicked him. But it's an easy mistake. Same frame type. Lot of that class o' bots went over to the 'Cons, but a lot didn't. I got a good friend named Perceptor who looks just like 'em."

"He has been ripped to pieces! What did that to him?"

"Ah don't know, don't think it coulda been a human. Those little guys are a lot tougher than they look, and them legs are sharp."

"A dispute among the Decepticons, an argument that became violent...?"

"Possible. Here's a couple of pictures that got posted from the same computer. They have geotags."

"Where?" Diarwen asked.

"In Indiana, north of a place called Kokomo."

"Kokomo...wait, is there a rest stop on the highway near there?"

"Sure is, just a few kilometers away, but what's that got to do with anything?"

"Optimus and I stopped there briefly, and sensed something...off. We were neither of us in any condition to go looking for trouble, but curse me for a fool if I missed something that kills! I thought it quiescent, and that I had time to heal before I hunted it."

"Ya don't think it'll stop with Hook?"

"Gods, no. Not if it is that energy I sensed." She paced the counter-top, thinking. "If it killed Hook, and he has not been seen since the day of the Battle...Brigit help me, it could have been killing for weeks while I ignored the threat!"

"How were you s'posed to know?" Jazz asked her. "It's a damn war. Things slip through th' cracks. We stop it when we can. Sometimes we can't and people get hurt. There's nothin' we can do about that 'cause nobody can be everywhere at once."

She nodded. "Well, something must be done now."

Jazz pinged the others to let them know what they had found. Optimus and Ratchet were close by, but Ironhide and Chromia had just got back from Tranquility with the Lennoxes, and most of the others were scattered out in Las Vegas. Optimus decided to call in only Ratchet and Ironhide, leaving Sideswipe in charge in Vegas to make sure no one got into serious trouble. He was aware that put a crimp in his young 3iC's own fun, but they had to balance readiness with the troops' need for a little R&R. Lennox made a similar call for his soldiers, got in touch with Graham to inform him of a possible situation, and requested that he keep a lid on things.

Bee cut his leave short to take Sam and Carly back, taking a shortcut through the desert where there was no speed limit. They dropped Sam off at the main hangar.

Sam went back to Jazz' room where the others were gathering. They were looking at something on a monitor, which he couldn't see from the floor. Ironhide gave him a lift to the table, where Lennox was.

When he saw the image of Hook's remains, the color drained from Sam's face, freckles standing out sharply, and he staggered.

His abrupt drop in blood pressure alarmed Ratchet, who had added such human indicators of medical emergency to the list of Cybertronian distress signs which he subconsciously monitored. He kept no record of the telemetry, in fact was not even aware of it unless something triggered an alert—but a fainting spell on something as high as bot-sized furniture was an extremely dangerous situation for a human. The moment the young man started to lose his balance, the healer was there to steady him.

Sam said, "Gonna hurl-"

Lennox snagged a plastic bag and gave it to him, then pointed at the monitor and drew a hand across his throat. Jazz was not yet familiar with the human military sign language, but the meaning of that one was fairly obvious. He minimized the image.

Diarwen picked up a cleaning cloth and jumped lightly across from the counter-top to the table. Sam gratefully accepted the cloth, and Ratchet got him a bottle of water, extending it with a small repair arm.

Sam apologized.

Will asked quietly, "What happened, Sam? Was that a flashback?"

"I—I guess it must have been. Nothing like that's ever—oh, God. For a minute it was—"

Ratchet asked, "What caused this reaction?"

Lennox said, "Hook's the same frame type as Scalpel, and the resemblance made Sam flash back on what that little bastard did to him. I'm surprised he hasn't had a flashback before, but probably nothing has triggered it. He's gonna be okay."

His voice was quiet, matter-of-fact, reassuring; Sam wasn't the first person he'd helped since he was trained in the recognition of post-traumatic stress.

He hadn't been around Sam much when things weren't in the process of blowing up all around them, so he hadn't been there to see the everyday signs, the hypervigilance, the sleeplessness, the irritability. But looking back, remembering things he'd heard, he knew they'd been there.

He would talk to Mearing. They would make available the counseling Sam needed to deal with it before it turned into a major problem for him.

And if Sam didn't want to get help? End-run, involving the soon-to-be household six, if Lennox had to guess.

Ironhide took the sack and the rag and dropped them in a disposal unit. "Ratchet, is this the same thing that can happen to us?"

"It appears to be similar. Sam, I suggest rest."

Sam shook his head and drank a little more water. "No, Ratch, I'm OK. It just blindsided me, that's all. If I don't get right back on the horse, it'll only make it worse the next time. That son of a bitch is dead, he can't do anything else to me."

His voice was stronger and his vital signs were coming back into a more normal range, so Ratchet said, "All right, but if it happens again, I'm taking you to medbay."

Sam nodded; he preferred that everyone just leave him alone, but what Ratchet proposed, he knew, was reasonable.

Though Lennox and Diarwen stayed close by, the meeting moved on. Jazz distributed the images and video file to the bots. Lennox could see it later when he needed to.

Ratchet let the monitoring subroutines fade back into his subconscious and turned to examination of the images. ::Something ripped him to pieces, but I see no signs of compression that would indicate he was being held. The images aren't of sufficiently high resolution to check for tool marks, but the plating of a mech that small is thin enough that we would clearly see servo marks if they were present. It is as though a magnetic field, or something similar, was responsible.::

Optimus replied, ::We will bring the remains back with us for you to examine as soon as possible, if the human authorities will allow that.::

Jazz said, "Diarwen?"

"This occurred within a few miles of that rest stop, Optimus."

"You believe that the entity there was responsible?"

"It is enough of a likelihood that I need to see for myself what happened there."

Ratchet said, "I'm confident that no human did that to Hook. Not without leaving a different set of marks."

Optimus and Diarwen exchanged a look. She was going, there was no doubt in the Prime's mind about that. Also, it was necessary to recover Hook's remains. He knew that it would be less than productive to go himself if they hoped to make inquiries quietly.

Lennox said, "I'll go with her, Prime, I can get the local authorities to cooperate if necessary."

Ironhide nodded. "Chromia and myself for backup."

Prime agreed. "I'll arrange transportation with Nellis."

Diarwen grumbled something that sounded like "rutting airplanes."

-Sidhe Chronicles-

(Kokomo, IN, later that morning.)

Adele sighed, and put the pen down on the form. "I'm just not comfortable signing off yet. While the rest of you go to breakfast, I'm going to pull a reading."

Tyler nodded. He had a lot of respect for Adele's readings; she never asked them to solve a problem, only to illuminate it. "Can we bring you something back, or shall we just make a stop at McDonald's after we pick you up?"

"Oh, McDonald's, please. That crap," said Adele, in a perfectly ladylike tone of voice, "grounds me better than real food, for some reason. And Nathan, will you come to my room? That way the rest of you can check out."

"Will you be knitting?"

"Until the nag champa kicks in, yes. Feel free to haunt the needles."

Arag had not picked up the human habit of rolling his eyes, but he did muffle a snort as the others trooped out the door. Adele left after them to go one door over and key herself into her room; Nathan floated in behind her.

Her bed was spread up, her packed suitcase already in the SUV. She sat down at the desk in the room, and pulled a small bag from her purse.

It contained a tiny electrical appliance, which looked like a squeeze-bottle top on a cord, and several two-dram bottles with exotic labels on them. She pulled out one of four marked "Nag Champa," took off the top, screwed the atomizer onto the bottle, and plugged it in.

It would take a few minutes to disperse a perceptible scent into the air. Adele laid out her yarn and needles, and the mist that was Nathan drifted into them.

She wasn't finished rummaging in her bag, however. A rayon scarf tie-dyed in various shades of gray and purple was removed, and spread across the desk. Four identical green silk bags, knit by Adele herself and full of Tarot cards, joined them; so did a digital recorder.

Adele picked up her needles, and, thinking of the case but not attempting to reach any decision regarding it, began to knit. As the smell of nag champa, an Indian incense, drifted through her hotel room, she felt her consciousness shift ... and, as always when that happened, she dropped a stitch.

She smiled, and put the needles down.

Nathan's fun over, he drifted out, but he knew the drill; Adele needed silence, so he took up residence by the door.

Adele disconnected the atomizer—these hotel smoke alarms were sometimes exceedingly unhelpful—and waited for one of the green bags to tell her it was the right one for this reading.

The recorder was voice-activated. Adele turned it on by clearing her throat, and then said, "July 5, Kokomo, Indiana. We are considering accepting the case of a series of murders whose victims are all half-devoured. I am pulling this reading to ensure a correct decision. Presently we are inclined toward refusing to become involved."

The recorder registered three small thumps, and then the sound of cards being shuffled seven times. "Three cuts," Adele said. "No Significator. Aquatic Tarot. Celtic Cross; Work Spread will be pulled if appropriate."

"Cover: Judgment, upright. Appropriate; three deaths are involved. Crossing: The Devil."

There was a silence. Finally Adele said, "This seems to me to indicate that the murderer is under some kind of compulsion to murder, or at any rate to carry out the acts which result in death."

A soft sound indicated the laying of another card. "The feeling I get from the Moon reversed in the Basis position is that this perp"—a term Adele had picked up from her teammates—"is extremely alienated. Also, there is something to do with water about this series of murders. Passing is"—another soft thump—"the Eight of Swords. The perp's been confined until recently. Perhaps we should look for recently-released convicts?" There was a long silence. "No, that doesn't feel right. And the confinement wasn't very humane. Close, crowded, damp, dark."

She laid out two more cards. "Possibility … Six of Swords upright. He will continue to do what he does. He's neither concerned with nor careful about being caught. It's as if ..." she paused for a moment, and then pushed her glasses up on her nose. "It's as if he feels that no authority can touch him. He feels … invincible." She held herself still for a moment, then laid out another card. "Probability: the Tower. He will be caught, his killing spree disrupted, but not before he himself wreaks a lot of havoc."

She laid out a sixth card, and fell silent, doing nothing but holding the deck, until the recorder kicked off. She continued to be still and silent for three solid minutes, by Nathan's estimation; that was a lot of brain-processing time.

Then Adele Hempstead raised her head, cleared her throat (which turned the recorder back on), and said, "The card of Self for this perp is the World, reversed. Preliminary meditation shows me that this indicates he is not, in fact, of terrestrial origin." Three fast slaps reached the recorder as she laid down the last cards, and she said, "The perp's 'Others' card is the Hermit, upright, which shows me that he is acting alone. There is no pet bear. It's he himself who consumes as much as he needs of his victims."

Nathan, had he been alive, would have felt this stomach drop. Being dead, he had only a strong feeling of revulsion.

Adele continued, "His hopes and fears card is Temperance, reversed. Perhaps this disquiet of mind is what he needs to induce in his victims. And the outcome is the Wheel of Fortune, reversed. Whatever has been keeping him safe is about to desert him. And," said Adele Hempstead, flashing a smile at Nathan, "that's a perfect time for us to join the hunt."

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Nathan, who was not visible in sunlight without making a particular effort, went with Adele to the McDonald's three blocks away; she spent half a block arguing with Tyler on the cell phone. "No, I'm not going to wait in the hotel lobby! Nathan's with me, so I'm perfectly safe. I'm going to have an Egg McMuffin, and I'll see you there."

The conversation over, she continued to hold the phone to her ear. "You had a question, Nathan."

"Is it true you charge $50 an hour for a Tarot reading?" asked Nathan, who was currently haunting her wallet, and reading an old business card.

"It was when I had that printed up. Now it's $75 if they come to me, and $100 if I go to them."

"How many readings do you do in a day, when you aren't with the team?"

"No more than two if I travel, four if they come to me. And that's a busy day, Nathan. I can't keep that up indefinitely."

"Why do you charge so much?"

"Because I am a genuine psychic reader. I don't spout back the rote meanings that you find in books. I let the cards talk to me, and I do my very best to keep my channel clear. I expect to be compensated for that trouble." She stopped at a crosswalk, and smiled at a man who looked at her curiously. "Wait a minute. I'm not getting any bars here."

The light changed, and the stranger, reassured that she actually was on a cell phone (which she wasn't), sped on ahead.

"That's why you don't eat meat most of the time?"

"That's why I don't eat meat, don't wear polyester, and don't take any prescription medications. It's a tough life, and if they want my expertise, they can bloody well pay for it," Adele said daintily. "Here's McDonald's. Today, I think I am going to have an Egg McMuffin, those delightful little potato cakes, and a big herking Diet Coke."

"It's too bad," Nathan said, "that your name is not Mary."

"And why would that be?" said Adele, standing out of line and looking up at the menu.

"Because then you could eat, drink, and be Mary," Nathan said.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Lennox hadn't expected Diarwen of all people to be a white-knuckle flier, as it was hard to imagine the Sidhe warrior afraid of anything. They flew out to Grissom Air Reserve Base on a C-130 along with a platoon of USMC reserves and several pallets of aid contributions from the residents of Nellis AFB, on their way to Chicago. It was a big plane, and not too bad flying weather. Lennox kept Diarwen busy talking about everything from their latest training session to the comical things Annabelle had done settling in after the move. Ironhide had caught her first nose-to-nose encounter with a chuckwalla lizard, and Lennox had those images on his cell phone.

Grissom had been one of the staging areas before the assault on Chicago. As he walked down the ramp, Lennox remembered the last time he'd set foot on this tarmac. Forty young men and women had boarded the Ospreys, along with sixteen helo crew, and only seven others besides himself had come home. He watched the air base operations taking place normally, and thought that those forty-nine soldiers were the reason why. He hoped they knew what their sacrifice had accomplished.

Chromia transformed and stood looking around. "What now?"

Lennox said, "The pictures and videos were posted from an internet address registered to an Ellen Ames, who lives just north of Kokomo. The kid's voice on the video was probably her oldest son Peter." He grinned. "I have an idea that if we can reassure the mom, those boys will probably be happy to tell you and Hide all about finding Hook."

Chromia laughed. "I think we can handle that."

Diarwen said, "Charming the mother may not be the easiest of tasks. She is not going to be happy when she finds out what her sons have been doing."

Lennox said, "They did the same thing any kid would've done."

Chromia took a helmet out of her subspace. "Diarwen, would you like to ride with me? Some fresh air might help, after being cooped up in that tin can." The cycleformer had no higher an opinion of insentient flying machines than her Sidhe friend did.

"Thank you, Chromia." She coiled her braid under the helmet. "Do you have room in your subspace for my duffel?"

Chromia took it and put it away.

Fifteen minutes later they pulled into a gravel driveway. An older, split-level ranch home with a separate garage sat back on its lot. Diarwen took a moment to look around the place, alert for any traces of negative energy. There was nothing unusual.

A black spaniel raised his head from his paws and barked at Lennox and Diarwen as they walked up to the front door. A large gray mackerel tabby cat stood up as they approached, stretched lazily, then sauntered into the house when a woman opened the door to see who was in her driveway. She called the dog in as well, and Lennox knew from the way she was standing, her right side hidden behind the door frame, that she had a shotgun beside that door. "That's close enough. Who are you and what can I do for you?"

Lennox halted and carefully kept his hands where she could see them. "Ma'am, my name is Lieutenant Colonel William Lennox, US Army. May I show you my identification?"

She nodded. He slowly got out his wallet and opened it to show his military ID. She studied it, then him, then relaxed fractionally. "Colonel. I'm Ellen Ames."

"Mrs. Ames, we're here to talk to your son about some photographs he posted on the Internet. He may have seen something that could be important to an investigation."

"Is he in some kind of trouble? What kind of an investigation?"

"Ma'am, we're with NEST, and as you probably know one of our duties is to recover the remains of deceased Cybertronians."

"Deceased—this is crazy! All right, come in."

Sure enough, when they came inside, a shotgun stood at the ready in the corner beside the front door.

"Now, before I let you talk to my son, I want to know exactly what all this is about."

Will pulled up the page in question on his cell phone. "Your son isn't in any trouble, Mrs. Ames."

She stared at it. "I'll be the judge of that. Peter Ames, come down here this instant!" She bellowed with all the authority of a drill sergeant, and Will was suddenly standing parade-ground straight in spite of himself.

There was a thump as feet hit the floor, then a clatter of footsteps down the stairs. "Yes, Mom?"

"This _Army Colonel_ wants to talk to you about some pictures of a dead Cybertronian that you apparently posted on the Internet yesterday. Explain yourself, young man!"

"D-dead? C-cybertronian? You mean that robot I found is alive—I mean, was? Mom, I didn't do anything wrong, did I?"

She put her arm around her son. Lennox said, "I don't think so, son. Why don't we all stay calm, and you can tell us about it."

Ellen and Pete sat on the couch. Mrs. Ames waved Lennox and Diarwen to a pair of armchairs. "Petey, what happened?" she asked.

"Yesterday, my brother and me went fishing up by the culvert. We found those...we thought it was pieces of a robot. You know, from the Chrysler or GM plants. I swear, we didn't know it was a person, or we would have called the cops."

"I believe you, son. Where is it now?"

"In the garage."

"Can you show us?"

He nodded, then he and his mother led the way across the yard to the garage. They raised the garage door and Petey climbed up on a chair to get the plastic box. He handed it to Lennox and stepped back quickly, as if afraid Will would give it back.

Lennox set the box down on the workbench and opened it. "Did you pick up all the...uh...everything you found?"

Petey nodded.

"OK. Where's this culvert?"

Ellen said, "If you go north on 31, you'll pass a junk yard a couple of miles up the road on the right. The culvert is just on the other side of that."

"Petey, this is important. Did you see anything else up there that was different, or not supposed to be there?"

He shook his head. "How did he...get like that?"

"I don't know, Pete, but he was a bad guy and he had lots of other bad guys mad at him. I think he probably said the wrong thing to one of them. You should take those pictures off your web page right away, and that video too."

He nodded. "I'll do that right now. If he was a bad guy—will they come looking for us?"

Will said, "I doubt it. They've got too much else to worry about right now."

End Chapter 4


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Disclaimers in Chapter 1

Arag waited in their SUV while Tyler went in to check on Adele. She was blissfully eating an Egg McMuffin.

He didn't want to nag. Telling someone old enough to be his mother that she shouldn't walk three blocks to a restaurant alone felt disrespectful at the least. But...Adele wasold enough to be his mother. And Tyler knew what was out there. Had known about the human monsters before he ever found out about S13.

Adele had a gun, and could look out for herself. But if she ran into something she couldn't handle, if Nathan had to come to her assistance, as a ghost he had his limits...and besides that his poltergeist abilities—let alone his flashier elemental powers—attracted all the wrong kind of attention.

S13 was supposed to keep the paranormal out of public view, not create Sightings. People panicked. Most supernatural people, creatures, and beings were living their lives day to day, doing no more harm than any other average citizen. But let somebody yell werewolf, and the neighbors wouldn't think about how responsible the extremely hirsute guy next door was. The guy who wasn't seen much around the time of full moon, because he was always locked in his safe room for those three nights.

They wouldn't think about that. They'd stock up on silver bullets.

If they saw a ghost, they'd scream and run for an exorcist.

American witches like Adele had been inspired by the civil rights era to fight for their own constitutional rights. Anyone who hung a witch now would find himself up on Federal hate crime charges—but that wouldn't make the victim any less dead. Tyler wished Adele was a little more aware of that sometimes.

He ordered a cup of coffee, then joined Adele. She gave him a tolerant smile. "As you can see, I walked three blocks without coming to any harm."

"So you did."

She ate the last bite of her hash browns. He took her tray, minus her soda cup, then the two went back to the SUV, sipping their drinks. Adele climbed into the middle seat. Arag held Tyler's coffee while he climbed in and fasted his seat belt.

After he had pulled out into traffic, he asked Adele, "What did your reading tell us?"

"It's one of ours," she said shortly, then explained, "The reading indicated that it isn't from this planet, but I think that's indicating something from another dimension, not from outer space. We only have one killer—there is no pet bear, Tyler, our killer is responsible for everything we saw."

"A cannibal? God, I hate cannibals," Tyler growled.

"A predator," she corrected. "Cannibals consume others of their own kind. This is not a human. I see indications that would lead me to call it a sociopath, if it were human—but anthropomorphizing is a mistake. It has its own norms. If we go into this expecting it to act exactly as a human sociopath would, we give it an advantage."

Tyler nodded. "Can we trust the pattern it's established?"

"I see no reason not to."

"Then we don't have a lot of time before it kills again. Once a week, twenty to thirty miles apart."

Arag said, "What now, Ty?"

The former profiler said, "We must have missed _something _at the crime scenes to be this far off the mark. Let's go back to the scene of the first killing and look around again."

The rest stop was not too far up the road. It was close enough that they parked in the lot and walked to the site where the body had been found; the CSI team had finished processing it before they had been called in. Time and yesterday's rain had washed away most of the obvious signs except a few scraps of yellow police tape, but Tyler recalled the crime scene photos as he surveyed it.

Arag said, "Found 'im over 'ere. Couldn't see from th' road down here. Nobody to hear him, either, if that rest stop was empty—an' it looks like it usually is."

Tyler made himself look at the scene as if for the first time. "Okay. They found his car in the lot so we know he was at the rest stop."

Arag nodded. "He din't come down here on 'is own, but I don't see no fightin' till right here."

Adele said, "Predators often play with their prey."

"Looks like," he said. "But din't last long. Not enough busted branches f'r tha'. Ended...righ' 'ere, I'd say," he judged, indicating a spot near where the body had been found. Can't tell ye much more'n that, Ty, too long ago."

Tyler knelt at the big former Marine's side to more closely examine some disturbed rocks. "I'd almost think whatever it was got the drop on the vic at the rest stop and incapacitated him somehow, carried him down here, and released him."

Adele said, "It had to be very sudden. There were no signs of a struggle near the vehicle."

Tyler asked her, "Are you getting anything?"

"Nothing new. Jenner's anger and terror, the killer's hunger. Tyler, the traces left by a human serial killer are not too dissimilar. There's often a hunger and lust for the terror of their victims. This differs by degree, not content."

Nathan commented softly, "Now that's terrifying."

S13 were so deeply involved in the crime scene that only Arag noticed a black Topkick and a dark blue Ducati drive past.

The ghost said, "Whatever this was, it may have been hunting at the rest stop, but I don't think it came from the south. A hungry predator, and that much easy prey? I doubt it could have resisted."

Adele said, "It's possible it was following the highway. Before we go to the other sites, Tyler, could we drive north for a while? It's only traveling an average of three to four miles a day between kills. There may be something nearby."

Tyler nodded. He had learned that it usually paid to follow Adele's hunches.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Ironhide pulled off the road onto a two-lane dirt track that led from the highway down to the stream. Apparently this was a popular fishing spot. He said to Lennox, "Hook did one good thing in his life—got himself killed in place of some kid out fishing."

Lennox grunted agreement. All the Decepticon medics had been war criminals, but Hook had taken a particular enjoyment in his work. "Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy."

Ironhide tripped the door latch and Lennox got out. Chromia transformed as Diarwen swung off, a _pas de deux_ as graceful as if it had been choreographed. Ironhide saved that vid clip to a file, which, he thought, he would probably share with Optimus. He stayed by the highway, on watch, as his mate accompanied Lennox and Diarwen down to the stream.

Diarwen said, "There are traces...here...but the running water has cleansed most of it. I would need an actual object associated with the killer, and some time to meditate over it, before I could learn anything here."

Chromia bent over to look back in the culvert. "This would be a good place to hide."

Lennox nodded and went back into the dank concrete pipe. The water was still flowing freely from the rain the day before, higher than it would have been when the boys had discovered the body. A father himself, he shuddered at what could have happened if the killer had still been here when the boys were playing...or if Hook had still been alive when they stumbled onto him. Petey had been unnerved by the discovery that he'd been carrying around pieces of a dead body, but Lennox was thankful beyond words that such had been the case.

Diarwen joined him. "There is a residue of negative energy here. It is possible that this is where Hook died."

"Death energy?"

Diarwen shook her head. "That is merely the energy of change, confined to one individual life: a very small place-and-time, so it is very intense. Not, this is something different, unpleasant, alien in some fashion."

"Then, what, you think whoever killed him moved down to the rest stop where you and Optimus saw...whatever you saw?"

She nodded. "That is my sense of what happened."

"Well, first things first." Lennox took out a small, portable energon detector the size of a cell phone. "Let's see if we can locate any more remains."

"I will continue upstream in case I am wrong about the murder taking place inside the culvert," Diarwen said, carefully stepping over some driftwood.

Lennox began his search inside the culvert, while Arcee scanned the creek downstream. Lennox was the first to discover anything; his find was the larger part of Hook's abdomen, lodged under some of the driftwood. He was a soldier and he had seen a lot of things; Hook's wasn't his first dismembered corpse. But the legs had been twisted off—one by one, judging by the different angles at which the stumps were pointing—and the abdomen was split open. He photographed the grisly find from several viewpoints before putting it into a plastic bag.

Chromia's senses led her to the remaining major pieces, as well as several small components. She looked up to Ironhide. ::I think we can rule out another 'Con. There aren't any tool marks. If something metal had done it, I'd be able to see that.::

::Ratchet and Que will figure it out,:: Ironhide replied. ::Wait a minute, somebody's stoppin'.::

Chromia looked up sharply, then sent a message to Diarwen's phone while she told Will aloud, "We've got company."

A black SUV that screamed alphabet-soup agency came to a stop not far from Ironhide, and a tall black man in a dark suit and sunglasses got out from the driver's side.

Lennox came up the hill to the roadway, standing not quite at parade rest. "Colonel William Lennox. Can I help you with something?"

The other came to a halt, put his hands on his hips. "Special Agent Tyler LeGrand. My team and I are investigating a series of murders in this area."

Diarwen came up the opposite side of the culvert—and saw Arag get out of the passenger side of the SUV.

She fell back on old customs. "Hail, Warrior."

As they had last parted on good terms, Arag replied, "Well met, Lady."

That got everyone's attention. Lennox said, much more civilly, "We're investigating a murder as well."

Le Grand saw the NEST insignia on Lennox' jacket, then his eyes flicked to Chromia. He put two and two together, got four, and nodded a greeting to Ironhide without batting an eyelash. He said to Arag, "You two already know each other?"

"She stayed at m' place a little while ago."

Introductions were quickly exchanged, then Lennox and LeGrand exchanged information on their cases. Adele and Diarwen stepped aside from the discussion. Adele said, "Arag mentioned that he had met a Sidhe warrior—he must have been referring to you."

"Yes. He did not mention being a government agent."

Adele's hazel eyes twinkled. "We don't make an issue of it."

"This culvert is tied to your cases?"

"I believe so. May I?" She gestured to the culvert.

"Milady, I think you are not dressed for the conditions inside. May I assist you?"

"Thank you." Diarwen helped her get from the bank to the opening of the concrete pipe without falling into the water, then made sure she didn't slip and fall once inside. Adele stopped and closed her eyes for a moment, centering herself and feeling the energy in the pipe.

"Yes, this was certainly the scene of _a_ crime," she said. "The running water, though..."

Diarwen nodded. "I could read no more than that from it. From as few traces as the water has left, though, I would judge that Hook was killed no more than a day or two after the Battle of Chicago."

"That was your victim's name, then?"

"Yes, a Decepticon fleeing the battle."

"It killed a _Decepticon?"_

"A small one, yes, perhaps as long as my arm. Cybertronians vary tremendously in size."

"Ah."

They climbed back up to the side of the road, where their teammates were crowded around Ironhide looking at the remains that they had recovered. Tyler said, "There's a problem. I'm not sure we're talking about the same unsub here. This was a rage killing. Whoever killed Hook literally ripped him to pieces. The next three were skinned and dissected, not torn apart. It fits the timeline, but nothing else."

Chromia said, "Yeah—except the skinning and dissection? That's got Hook's name all over it. Those little 'Con minibots, Primus, if you ever got captured all you could do was pray you wouldn't get turned over to one of them."

Arag said, "Wait, you're sayin' our killer took out another killer, then started actin' like 'im?"

Adele replied, "It...makes sense. He draws nourishment from his victims' suffering, but he devours them as well. I couldn't figure out why he did that. He doesn't need to eat his prey to live. Many human cultures, though, have traditions of devouring parts of an enemy to gain his powers. Perhaps he takes something from every victim, and what he gained from Hook was intelligence and curiosity."

Diarwen asked, "Ironhide, would you mind projecting a map and place the sites of all the killings on it?"

He projected it on the road bed, the nearest clear surface. One dot appeared, their present location. The next was the rest stop a short distance south. At that point the line veered west toward the Indiana border, and two more dots appeared, near towns called Rossville and Corwin. The weapons specialist drew a circle around Corwin with a thirty-mile radius. "The next murder could be anywhere in that circle, _if_ he sticks to the pattern he's established."

Tyler nodded. "Adele, how does this murder affect the information that you got from your reading this morning?"

She considered. "I had a sense there was water involved. This doesn't entirely explain that."

Ironhide asked, "Any more we can do here?"

Tyler said, "I'll have a CSI team process the area. They're not gonna be happy you moved the body."

Lennox apologized. "My standing orders are to recover any Cybertronian remains and return them to their people before they fall into the wrong hands."

"I'm just sayin'."

"I hear ya. But the good news is, we can send him back to have Ratchet look at him, and he's bound to be able to tell us more than a medical examiner who has no experience with Cybertronians."

Tyler had to concede that point. "OK, but we need to maintain chain-of-evidence in case we end up with a human perp."

Lennox nodded and said, "Chromia, why don't you and Diarwen escort the remains to Grissom and get them back to NEST? Hide and I will help out Special Agent LeGrand and his team."

LeGrand said, "We were re-checking our crime scenes. If the two of you can secure this area until the CSI team gets here from Indianapolis, it'll free us up to do that."

"No problem." The two team leaders exchanged contact information, then LeGrand made a call that got CSI moving. The S13 team piled back into their SUV and headed for the Rossville site, while Chromia and Diarwen went north to the air base.

Ironhide and Lennox settled in for a long wait. Lennox asked, "What do you think of those guys?"

"Your government has an secret agency to study the paranormal. I ain't sure what to make of that."

Lennox nodded. "I'm not sure either. Look, you and I both know there are usually damn good reasons to keep things classified, but this goes way beyond what you'd normally call reasonable. Most Americans are living in a phony world that has very little to do with the reality that the government knows full well exists. What I want to know is whether that secrecy is necessary for national security."

Ironhide rumbled agreement. "Might not want to try too hard to find out. Drop a stray bolt down a dark hole, you might find out it's a driller's den. If it does turn out there's somethin' goin' on that shouldn't be, I ain't sure we're in a place to do anything about it right now."

Lennox shrugged. "Blow the whistle, that's all. But I'd have to know first that I wouldn't be doing more harm than good. You only got one G-man there. The rest of them are paranormals, but LeGrand isn't their minder; it doesn't look like exploitation to me. Though after the mess S-7 made, I'm not walking away from this till I'm sure it's above-board. I don't want to find out later that they got something _else_ under a dam somewhere, and I ignored a problem till it blew up in my face."

"...Yeah."

Lennox sat down in the patch of shade that his friend and partner provided, and cracked open a bottle of cold water. They were going to have a long wait for the CSI team to get up here from Indianapolis.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Four hours later, Mirage met Diarwen and Chromia at Grissom to collect Hook's remains and take them back to Mission City. Chromia subspaced the extra energon supplies that the spy had brought her. By then, it was late afternoon. They stopped for Diarwen to get something to eat, then headed southwest to meet the others near Corwin, the scene of the last murder.

They met in an abandoned gas station located at a crossroads on the outskirts of Corwin. Ironhide and Will, the S13 agents, and a deputy sheriff were gathered in the cracked blacktop lot behind the boarded-up station. The deputy, a balding, heavy-set man in his early fifties, was saying, "Ordinarily we don't look into missing persons reports until they've been gone for forty-eight hours, but in this case, the victim was still a minor so we were able to get right on it. His mother called the pizzeria when he didn't come home after his shift, and then called 911. I was on my way to his last delivery when I drove by here and noticed some of these weeds knocked down. I had a hunch and checked it out. James' car was right here behind the station, with the lights on and the engine running. James was inside. I gotta warn you, it's still pretty bad in there."

The deputy had the keys. He opened the service door at the rear of the station.

Tyler asked, "How did you find this door?"

"Hanging open."

"The victim didn't have a key, did he?"

Deputy Hawkins shook his head. "If he did, we didn't find it. The owner swears it was locked, but I doubt they've so much as seen the place in months."

The door opened into a back hallway between a stockroom for the convenience store up front, and the manager's office. That hallway was splattered with blood.

"Here's the thing..." the deputy said, pointing to a dried bloodstain on the concrete floor. The footprint of a large animal was clearly visible.

It looked somewhat like a bear track, but Diarwen knew that a bear's paw had four toes, not three.

Also, a bear track was only about five inches wide for a black bear, six for a grizzly. This was eighteen inches across.

"I don't know how something that big got in and out of here without tearing the place to pieces," the deputy said, "but there's no damage anywhere."

Diarwen bent over, holding her hand over the bloodstains, careful not to touch anything. She and Adele exchanged a significant look. The creature's hunger was stronger here than it had been at the older sites. Diarwen was sure she would recognize that signature again, but it wasn't fresh enough for her to track. The victim's traces contaminated it, as did the auras of those who had investigated the killing.

Arag asked, "Why'd 'e stop 'ere? Anythin' wrong wi' th' car?"

"Not a thing. Look, people saw that print. We've got folks awake at night, sitting up with their shotguns. But I'm getting the strong impression that a shotgun wouldn't help."

Diarwen nodded. "A shotgun alone would not. But I have been long in this world, and I have seen ordinary people do the unbelievable to shield their children. Family is everything..._everything._ This creature cannot hope to comprehend the power in that. Let them keep their watch. We know not Who may stand vigil beside them."

Once Adele nodded to Tyler to signal that she had learned all she could from the crime scene, they left, allowing the deputy to lock up. Tyler said, "Thank you for taking the time to talk to us, Deputy Hawkins."

"I just hope it helps,." the man said, got into his cruiser, and went back on patrol.

Diarwen said, "Do we believe that the door was open when the creature found it?"

"That's the only logical explanation," Tyler said. "If it had broken in, we'd see signs of forced entry."

Ironhide said, "Yeah—like a shredded door."

Adele said, "I'm more concerned with why that poor boy stopped here. There was no reason for him to do so—and every reason for him to get back to work."

Diarwen said, "Creatures of this sort can lure or compel their victims to come into range. Their ability to create glamours and to enthrall their victims often makes them more dangerous than their physical ability to create mayhem. It takes a strong will to defeat such a compulsion—and that assumes that the victim realizes that he or she is being compelled."

Lennox leaned against Ironhide's front bumper, a gesture as familiar and as casual as a hand on a human friend's shoulder. "Look, we've been at this all day, we're not going to find this thing tonight, and we're gonna lose our light anyhow. I saw a motel back in Corwin. Let's check in for the night and figure out a search pattern. We can get started first thing in the morning."

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Tyler's cell woke him before dawn. He slid his finger across the screen to answer it. "LeGrand."

"Braithwaite here," said the clipped British voice. "I'm sorry to wake you, but I'm afraid there's been another incident."

Tyler sat up, scrubbing his free hand across his eyes, then reached for his notepad and pen. "Go ahead, Director."

"The victim was Harmon Ruggles, age 72, a farmer who lived at Number 1701 Corwallis Road, in Perrysville, Indiana. His daughter discovered the body last night; she checked on him when he failed to make his usual call after dinner."

"Damn. Who caught the case?"

"The Vermillion County Sheriff's Department."

"Have Carlise contact the Sheriff's Department and find out where to meet their representative. I want Adele to see this crime scene before it gets too contaminated. We'll be on our way ASAP."

"Special Agent LeGrand, how are things working out with the NEST team?"

"Very well, sir."

"I'm gratified to hear it. Ms. Torrence will call you once she's spoken to the sheriff's office."

By then, Arag was awake. Sometime during the night, he got tired of trying to sleep with both large feet hanging off the end of the bed, and had moved to the floor. Cursing in Marine, he got up and banged on the wall between their room and Lennox's. "Wake up call, sir, we got another case!"

They heard a groan, some answering swears in fluent Army Ranger, then Lennox' feet hit the floor.

Having heard Arag, Diarwen and Adele were also awake. Adele groaned, "What time is it?"

"Ten minutes of five," the Sidhe replied. "I believe that another body has been found."

"Oh,no. No." Adele reached for her robe as she got out of bed.

Fifteen minutes later, they gathered on the covered walkway in front of Tyler and Arag's room. It was still pitch dark outside the circles of light from poles in the parking lot, so Ironhide turned on his headlights, and a cool mist drifted through the beams.

Tyler quickly briefed them, then he and Lennox went to the front desk to take care of the paperwork while everyone else got their belongings from the rooms. They came back with coffee and donuts from the breakfast buffet. The desk clerk apologized for the meager selection, since she didn't put the buffet out until five-thirty—but no one was going to argue with a freshly-brewed pot of coffee and a box of donuts, the contents of which were still warm from the delivery truck. Lennox and Diarwen quickly finished theirs and threw the trash away there; S13 got into a company car which wouldn't complain about the crumbs, and drove away. It was only a few minutes before Ironhide and Chromia were following the SUV.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

By the time the little caravan turned off a county road onto the driveway of the Ruggles place, it was getting light. All the downstairs lights were on in the white frame farmhouse. A tearful woman and two children were on the front porch talking to a deputy. A man and a teenage boy were working around the stock barn—cattle needed care no matter what tragedy was unfolding among the farmfolk—and another deputy was keeping watch over them.

Standard ops, when a crime had been committed. Evidence might be anywhere.

Tyler ran down his window as the deputy from the porch advanced. "Excuse me, I'm Special Agent LeGrand. Sheriff Briggs asked us to meet her here."

The man pointed at a couple of ruts past the barns that ran between a cornfield and a pasture fence. "She's up that way."

They found the sheriff and two more of her deputies standing beside two squad cars. A big green tractor, an ambulance and the M.E.'s van were parked about a hundred yards away, near a pasture fence. As they parked behind the squad cars, the big black CSI van turned the corner by the barns and came up their way. The sheriff waved them through.

"Agent LeGrand?"

"That's me, Sheriff."

Shannon Briggs was a tall, severe woman with close-cut silver hair and gunmetal blue eyes under a baseball cap bearing the shield of the Vermillion County Sheriff's Department. Over her uniform blouse and Kevlar vest, she wore a short windbreaker with the word SHERIFF on the back. The leather belt that held her sidearm, cuffs, and other gear was well polished but showed the signs of years of use.

Her grandkids probably saw another side of her, but right now the impression her visitors got from her was that if you messed up in Briggs' county, you would end up not in but under the county jail. "I told Doc Clemens not to move the body until you got here. I hope you didn't eat a big breakfast."

Then Ironhide transformed, to tower over her. Briggs looked at him curiously, but didn't otherwise react.

One of the deputies, not moving his hands from his belt, tilted his neck to make eye contact with the mech and said, "I wanta thank you for kickin' ass up in Chicago. My sister and her family live up there, and all of them are safe thanks to you."

Ironhide rumbled, "Glad to hear that, Deputy."

And he was. Thanks, for a soldier, was both rare and unexpected. Hearing that what he'd done made a difference? That made a lot of hardship and danger worthwhile.

And family, Ironhide thought, was why they all did what they did.

He waited on the dirt road while the rest of the team, his family of the moment, moved up. He could see everything through the telemetry feed that Chromia (permanent family) offered, without taking the chance of stepping on evidence.

The rest of them followed Sheriff Briggs down to the site. What was left of the body lay beside the fence, skinned and cut up like the other three.

The blood was not yet fully dry.

Diarwen knelt, her hand spread over the nearest bloodstain, but she didn't touch it. She didn't have to. "Adele?"

The sensitive nodded. "It's strong enough."

"Which way did it go?"

One of the deputies said, "The tracks go down that way toward the creek, but then they just disappear. It didn't make the water. We don't know how that could happen. The ground's too soft to avoid leavin' a trail this time of year."

Diarwen and Adele followed his directions. Diarwen noted the tracks as they went, and pointed them out to Adele. "Look, the tracks are larger," she pointed out.

Adele nodded. "It's growing in size, and almost certainly in power as well, after every kill."

Even though Diarwen knew the creature was long gone on whatever deadly path it took, her fingers itched for her bow. "Aye."

"It kept going this way. Are you sure there aren't any more tracks?" Adele asked, surveying the muddy ground.

"I see no more," Diarwen said. "But I agree that its traces continue to the water. I wonder if it has the power to move in and out of this reality?"

"Nothing's impossible," Adele said calmly.

"I am not sure which way it went from there, are you?"

"No, not in running water."

Diarwen said, "Stay here. I want to see if it came out on the other side."

"Be careful, the creek may be deep in the middle."

"I can swim," she assured the lady. She thought of taking her boots off, but the water was murky, and she did not want to step on broken glass.

The water proved never to be above waist deep, and there was no sign of the creature on the other side. By then, their teams and two of the deputies had joined them.

Lennox and LeGrand trusted the two sensitives' word that the thing had escaped either in or over the water, but all the sheriff knew was that the tracks just stopped. She was unwilling to leave the fields unsearched.

Diarwen said flatly, "Sheriff, please take me very seriously when I advise you that you are after an extremely dangerous quarry. I believe that either my team or Agent LeGrand's can bring it to bay. However, if you and your men do, you will be facing a creature three times the size of a grizzly bear, against whom your weapons may not be effective. Please, call us before you confront it."

Briggs' eyebrows went up. "Three times the size of a grizzly bear?"

Diarwen said, "It gets bigger, stronger, after every kill."

Briggs looked at the tracks. "It's possible," she said. "We find it, I'll be on the horn." She pulled out her phone, and punched their numbers in.

The dirt road more or less followed the stream. Adele went upstream with her team, while the NEST group went downstream. Chromia and Ironhide stayed on the road, within sight of Lennox and Diarwen as they waded down the stream.

About a mile downstream, Diarwen picked up the trail again. Lennox called LeGrand and the sheriff to let them know.

The searchers first found the thing's back trail from the east, then an hour later, the westbound track leading away from the stream toward Illinois.

Lennox asked, "Are we gaining on it?"

"No," Diarwen said. "If anything, we are losing ground."

Ironhide suggested, "Chomia and I can't see the trail anyhow. What if we went on ahead, tried to flush it out? Do you think it would take the bait, or go to ground?"

Diarwen and Adele looked at each other. Finally Diarwen said, "It is no more than a guess, Ironhide, but if it feels threatened, I think it will go to ground. It finds a deserted place to lie in wait, and attacks its victims while they are alone. It minimizes its own risk. I do not think it would confront you both."

Sheriff Briggs said, "OK. How long will the trail stay fresh enough for you to follow it?"

"About forty-eight hours, I should think," Diarwen replied.

"We're not about to lose it, then. As long as we chase it, it's gonna keep running. What we need to do is stop, let it think it's lost us, then sneak up on it."

Tyler said, "That makes sense. It's worth a try anyway."

Lennox said, "Let's do that, then."

They stopped in a clearing. Adele was getting tired and too warm; Ironhide invited her to sit in his cab and turned on his cooling system, and got a bottle of water out of his subspace for her. He snarled at anyone who seemed about to suggest that this was a kind thing to do, to the amusement of those who knew him.

Diarwen said, "When we move again, I think that Nathan and I should scout ahead. There is a good possibility that it will be unaware of Nathan's presence. In any case, it may think that we have grown desperate and split up to cover more ground." She didn't say it, but she hoped to be able to track the creature more easily without so many conflicting auras confusing her.

"In other words, you want to use yourself as bait," the sheriff objected.

"Have you a better idea? You will reach me very quickly if it makes an attempt on me, and I have fought such things before. I would not make the suggestion if I did not think I could hold my own."

Nathan said, "It could work."

One of the deputies, Chris McKay, asked, "Are you really a ghost?"

"If you have another suggestion, I'm open to it," Nathan said to him.

"I don't have the foggiest idea, brother. And that's the problem right there, y'know? Up until this summer, we thought we knew how the world worked. Ghosts and aliens were science fiction. But now, ghosts are real. Space aliens are real. This...whatever we're chasing is too damn real. What the hell is going on?"

Tyler said, "Deputy, there are more things out there like this killer. But for every one of them, there are probably a couple of thousand—or more—creatures which are not remotely human, doing no harm to anyone. We've had witch hunts in this country, lynchings of humans and other creatures, who are too different. That's why most of these cases end up classified. That's why our agency and yours"—he looked at Lennox—"and yours too"—the eyes switched to McKay—"exist. Not just to catch the guilty, but to protect the innocent. That was the job of every single person here the last time I looked."

"I'm not arguing that," Chris said. "Look—this country is supposed to be governed by the will of the people, but how can that mean anythin' if nobody knows what's really going on? And you're saying what, paranormals have to be protected from ordinary folks? I'm sorry, but that don't hold water. We've had a lot of problems with bigotry, and we've always confronted it. That's why women have the vote. That's why there was a civil rights movement. Slappin' a big red classified stamp on things don't make the bigotry go away. When you sweep a problem under the rug, ain't no way you can educate people to solve that problem."

"Every time there's an unsolved murder, do you want the kooks coming out of the woodwork, some trained, some without the chance of a snowball in hell of surviving, going on a hunt for things like this? Some of them to prevent it from doing more harm, some of them to harness its power for themselves?"

"How many of these things are out there killing because they're smart enough to make it look like a human did it, and law enforcement doesn't know what we ought to be looking for?" Sheriff Briggs asked.

Lennox said, "We've got no way of knowing that."

"Colonel, Sheriff," Tyler said, looking at both of them, "all I can tell you is that we welcome your help, but you're amateurs here."

Briggs managed to look down at him even though she was two inches shorter. "Son, does it look to you like I'm discounting anything you've told me here? Did I give you any kind of flack about things like that not existing outside of a horror movie?"

"No ma'am!"

"If I don't know what kind of weapons load I need to take the damn thing down, is that my fault or yours?"

Tyler had to admit, "Mine, ma'am."

"Then don't you fuckin' call me or mine amateurs when that thing came to my county and killed one of my people—and it might have been stopped before it got here if the law over in Kokomo had all the information they needed!" she snapped. "And for the record—I don't like the implication that I'm too damn much of a bigot to protect _all_ the citizens of Vermillion County, no matter what they look like!"

It straightened everyone's spine better than a year of chiropractic.

Tyler snapped back, "Ma'am, yes ma'am! When more than half of the folks at the next FOP convention share your attitude, there won't be a need for S13. But with all due respect, we aren't there yet, and I think you know that as well as I do."

Briggs said slowly, "Yeah, there's some truth to that."

On both sides, ruffled feathers settled slowly.

Lennox said quietly, "Look, we're all on the same side here. What's important is stopping that thing."

Nods of assent went around the circle.

End Chapter 5


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Disclaimers in Chapter 1

The combined team rested in more-or-less amicable silence for an hour, then Diarwen stood up. "Give us a ten-minute head start."

Ironhide told her, "You watch your aft."

"I have no intention of allowing this thing near it," she grinned, then disappeared into the forest. The rest of them waited the requested ten minutes, making no effort at being patient, before following.

Diarwen knew that Nathan was following close behind her. Invisible to normal sight in the daytime, he had drawn his aura tightly in, and it was concealed by her own.

The trail led through patchy woodlots, a fallow field, and an overgrown pasture before crossing a road—the creature had waited in a stand of locust saplings for the traffic to clear; while the inch-long thorns had not inconvenienced it, Diarwen had to work to avoid them.

On the other side was a gravel pit, and the trail led around its edge. Beyond that was a farm, overgrown by a twenty-year-old stand of trees. The barn had collapsed, but the farmhouse still stood, devoid of doors and windows, its roof sagging.

Nathan whispered, "It's in there."

Diarwen strung her bow and drew from her quiver one of her few remaining mithril arrowheads. "I believe you are right. Shall we make sure of it?"

"Let's," he replied.

Diarwen forgot the hot sun, her wet boots, and everything else that was extraneous to the hunt as she moved forward.

She picked a careful path through the new growth, following an animal trail. Sparing enough attention to avoid stepping on a twig and announcing her presence, she focused most of her concentration on the house.

The creature's presence here was like a foul odor, a black miasma hanging like a pall over the ruins of the farm. As did Nathan, she had the strong impression that it was originating from the house.

Everything was quiet, there were none of the sounds that she would have expected from the small wildlife that should have resounded in a place like this. Even the breeze through the leaves seemed muffled.

People spoke casually of evil, but she knew that here she was in its true presence, the one with a capital "E". Something that had, for whatever reason, knowingly chosen the dark path, and fully committed to it. An enemy of Life.

When a warrior of the Sidhe met such a creature, one thing was certain. Soon, very soon, one of them would die. Diarwen ni Gilthanel had recently discovered a myriad of reasons to want to live.

She sensed satiety. The creature had had its meal, and now it wanted to lie low and nap for a while.

Diarwen reached for her phone, dialed Lennox, let it ring once and hung up. Now all they had to do was wait for their backup to arrive.

The best laid plans, she later reflected. Theirs "gang-ed agley" when a truck backfired loudly at the nearby gravel pit. The creature startled, sought the cause of the noise, and found Diarwen.

She loosed a flaming arrow as it cleared the door. It was still mostly in mist form, four-legged, with glowing amber eyes. Her arrow struck it in the chest, and passed straight through without doing physical harm. The arrowhead's elemental fire was another thing entirely. The creature roared in pain, and fully manifested as it bore down on her.

Diarwen's sword sang free of its sheath, and there was a loud _whoosh_ as it caught fire. She leapt, meaning to land on the thing's back and drive the sword between its shoulder blades.

It dodged and swiped a platter-sized forepaw at her as she landed and rolled out of the way, rising to her feet with her sword at guard.

Nathan had honed his poltergeist abilities to a fine edge over the centuries. A barrage of stones, fallen branches, and other debris from the forest floor pelted the creature like grapeshot. Diarwen took advantage of the momentary distraction to dart in and slash its side.

It backstepped, then leapt on Nathan, drawing energy from him. In a split second, the wound that Diarwen had inflicted closed itself.

Nathan screamed, unable to escape. Diarwen's first instinct was to reach out and sever the link between them, but she had lost the power to do that. Voicing the Sidhe battle cry that had given rise to a thousand legends of the scream of the banshee, the warrior charged to her companion's aid, and drove her sword into the creature's shoulder to the hilt.

It returned to its mist form, and the sword fell to the forest floor.

Ironhide made enough noise for a battalion as he charged around the gravel pit and into the fight. Arag and Tyler leapt from his truck bed and Lennox rolled clear as he transformed, all four of them bringing up weapons.

The creature stared at Diarwen. _**I am Sufri. Soon I will devour you.**_

With that, it took off westward at a rate of speed that not even Ironhide could match.

Diarwen sheathed her sword and ran to Nathan, who was flickering in and out of manifestation. She yanked off her glove and thrust her hand through his, simply pushing out raw energy. Her receptive hand drew mana from the earth around her, though with frustrating slowness.

At first Nathan clutched at her like a drowning man a life preserver, but then he realized he was taking more than she could replenish, and drew in his aura.

Arag came over. "Nate! What'd it do t' 'im?"

Diarwen said, "It nearly consumed him. I do not have the magic to aid him—Ironhide, we need Adele, _quickly!"_

He turned and transformed, blasting back the way he had come in a spray of dirt and debris.

Arag reached for Nathan's other hand. When the ghost stubbornly refused to take his life energy, Arag shouted, "Don't be an _idiot, _Nate, I c'n do this all day!"

Diarwen exhaled with relief when the ghost let Arag take his hand, and the Fomori-blood's energy began to flow to Nathan. Arag replenished his teammate at far greater speed than she, stripped of most of her power, could.

Ironhide returned with Adele. She slid out of his passenger seat and ran the few steps to Nathan.

She cleansed the area around them—one moment, the creature's residual dark energy was there, and the next it was gone. A circle flared up, and the witch drew an athame from...someplace; Diarwen, who did not carry a handbag, was not sure where.

And it made no difference now. As Diarwen had tried to do, Adele drew up energy from Mother Earth and directed it to her downed teammate.

When her working was finished, she dropped to the forest floor, breathing hard as she grounded the excess energy. Then she dismantled her hastily cast circle with a whispered thanks.

Lennox had learned enough from Diarwen to know that Adele would need food to help ground herself. He ripped the wrapper open from his last energy bar and gave it to her, as Ironhide pulled a water bottle from his subspace.

She smiled at them. "Thank you."

The others had surrounded the circle, weapons ready, on guard against the thing's...Sufri's...return.

Nathan gasped, "What was that thing? Diarwen, what was it?"

She knelt beside him. "Such things have many names. Their origin is deep in the astral plane, or bordering on it—no one knows for certain. No two are the same. They are pure energy, so manifestation of a physical form is a thing that they must learn to do once they arrive here. It may have been dark all along, or it may have gone mad when thrown into such a radically alien environment as our world is to it. However it became what it is today, now it is an...energy vampire, if you will, feeding off the lives of its prey. Nathan, I owe you a tremendous apology. I never guessed that such a thing could harm one who is no longer mortal. I should have known, mana is mana, no matter the shell and no matter the state of being. My error nearly cost you dearly, my friend, please forgive me."

Nathan said, "I should have known my own limitations, Diarwen. I did know there might be a risk when I chose to accompany you."

There was that in his voice which reminded her that this was a soldier who had given his life for his country. If he chose to be forever the seventeen-year-old boy that he indeed was, that carefree youth had a core of steel. She bowed her head. "So. We have learned from this, at any rate."

The sheriff and her deputies arrived on foot, and again they had to describe what had happened. They cursed the luck that had alerted the creature—Sufri—before enough of them could get there to deal with it, but there was nothing to be done about that now.

Ironhide asked, "What do we do now? Keep tracking it?"

Diarwen shook her head. "It will keep its aura controlled to avoid leaving a trail for us to follow. We need to figure out where it is going."

Her own fields were drawn in, spiky with anger and a sense of failure. Chromia put a hand on her shoulder. "Today, the luck was with it. That wasn't your fault."

Adele finished the energy bar and the water, and put the trash in her purse, and stood to look around the old farm. The traces of the creature's dark energy were already beginning to dissipate. Sufri had not been here long enough to set its mark into the foundations of the place. Nature would soon cleanse it on Her own.

With most of them crowded into the bed of Ironhide's alt form, they went back to the farm and collected their own vehicles. Then they went to the sheriff's department, half an hour south of Perrysville near Newport.

There were showers and there was hot coffee, and not too long afterward, pizza appeared (Adele's abilities were not involved in this welcome manifestation). The sheriff opened a side door and a couple of windows so that Ironhide and Chromia could hear and see what was going on in the briefing room where the humans gathered.

One wall held two large maps, one of the state of Indiana and the other of Vermillion County. Adele's attention was drawn to the state map. She found a box of push pins and marked the scenes of the five murders.

Except for the culvert where Hook had died, the rest fell almost into a straight line. Adele said, "He's following a ley line. I thought that might be the case, but I wasn't sure...the lines are different in this area, after the Battle of Chicago."

Diarwen joined her. "I do believe that you are right. There is a new nexus on Wacker Drive, where Sentinel was fool enough to attempt a working that would have—I do not think I am allowed to speak of that. But the result led to a change in the ley lines, as Mother Earth healed Herself. These lines would have been pulled north. This should be the new line, to an anchoring nexus...about here?" She indicated a point across the Illinois state line.

Adele nodded. "There's a large one there, in a state park near Danville."

Briggs said, "Well, then, we know where it's going, all we have to do is go get it!"

Diarwen said, "Would it were so simple. A nexus is the meeting place of many ley lines. From there, it would have many paths to choose. Perhaps northward to Chicago, perhaps elsewhere. If it gets past us there, we will have only its trail of victims to tell us which way it has gone, as it grows stronger with every new murder. And should it learn to hide its kills, finding it may become impossible."

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Diarwen was exhausted, so much so that Chromia insisted that she ride in Ironhide's cab. Their convoy consisted of the two of them, S13's SUV, and four patrol cars containing everyone that the department could spare.

It was starting to get dark when they arrived.

The Middlefork Woods Nature Preserve was a crowded place, full of vacationing families. Built on recovered strip-mined land, its deep ponds, forested hills and lush bottomlands had returned quickly to their former state, thanks to the presence of the nexus point. The Middle Fork of the Vermilion River had been restored to life, and it spread its bounty happily across the Preserve.

The park rangers had already been ordered to close and evacuate the nature preserve, using the excuse of a chemical spill headed their way. Now, all those crowds of campers, hurried along by rangers, were converging on the exits.

Diarwen hadn't even been aware that she'd been asleep until she was awakened by a blaring horn—the campers weren't happy about being turfed out. She looked around to get her bearings. "What has been going on?"

Ironhide said, "NEST is coming in from Champaign, ETA's about three hours."

"Will Optimus' plane be able to land there? I thought it needed a long runway."

Ironhide said, "He'll have to drop."

"What?"

Lennox grinned. "Parachute. It's how he got into Shanghai."

Diarwen pinched herself. "I thought that I heard you say-"

"You did."

Ironhide and Lennox both burst out laughing at her dumbfounded expression.

They were directed to a parking lot behind the ranger station, where park rangers quickly issued maps and assigned them areas to check for campers who had not left when ordered, or day trippers who might not have heard about the evacuation. Diarwen and Chromia were sent along a narrow hiking trail which Chromia assured the rangers she could travel.

They found several groups of hikers and sent them back to the ranger station. The trail next led them past a pond, fishermen lining its bank.

Diarwen shouted so that the ones at the far end of the beach could hear her. "There's an evacuation, a chemical spill! You must all leave now. Go back to the ranger station, hurry!"

"It's a hoax! Some camper told us," one of the fishermen replied, casting his line. "Now shut up, you're scaring the fish!"

Chromia transformed. "I'll do worse than scare the fish if you aftheads don't get moving! This is not a hoax! Now what camper was this?"

Grumbling, they packed up their fishing gear. "Some college kid," the man who had first protested said. "He went up the trail over there."

Chromia shook her head. ::Hide, we may have a problem. Some fishermen didn't want to leave, because a college kid told them it was a hoax. There may still be more people left in the park!::

Ironhide cursed all idiot civilians. ::We'll pass the word.::

::They saw which way the boy went. We're going to look for more people.::

::Be careful, they'll bait the fraggin' thing right in.::

The sun was nearing the horizon. Diarwen said, "We shall have a difficult time finding everyone in the dark!"

"Prime and the others should be here soon," Chromia replied.

"I hope we do not scare it off."

"Tyler had an idea. Once areas are cleared, we're having groups gather at campsites or picnic tables, so there'll be enough people together that Sufri isn't likely to attack them. Then, when you or Adele locate it, we can all converge on it. But how are we to stop it from turning to mist and disappearing again? For that matter, how can we defeat it?"

Diarwen said, "I cannot know for certain, but my elemental fire clearly affected it. If that is so, then energon weapons _should_ do so as well. It might be possible to bind it, but that is only a temporary solution—one day it would escape again."

The trail led to a primitive, hike-in campground, where several campers were still very much in residence. Diarwen shouted, "All of you, listen to me! The evacuation is not a hoax! Get your things together, _now! _Gather at the fire ring!"

They went from site to site, making sure the campers were leaving this time. Diarwen spoke to a responsible looking middle-aged couple who were hiking with a large collie dog. "Some people said a young man was telling everyone that the evacuation was a hoax. Do you know if he's here?"

"He was wearing a Cubs shirt, I remember that. I don't see him now, do you, Charlie?"

"No, sweetheart, I think he went on up the trail."

By the time they chivvied the last stragglers into the group, the sun had set and it was pitch dark under the trees. Diarwen told Chromia, "You take these people back to the ranger station—or at least until you meet someone else who can. I am going to look for that stupid boy. He could be the only one still out here alone."

Chromia looked back and forth between Diarwen and the group of civilians, torn between obligations. In the end, there was only one thing she could do—she was not a tracker like the Sidhe. It would be much more difficult for her to find the boy at night. "Diarwen, be careful. Please."

"Chromia, I swear to you, I no longer seek my final battle."

"I'm glad to hear that. I'll come back as soon as I can," the Autobot promised.

Diarwen's eyes adjusted to the dim light as soon as she left the brightness of Chromia's headlight. The Sidhe were more at home under the stars than in bright sun, which was fortunate. Although the moon was nearly in Her first quarter, little light filtered through the trees to the trail below.

It wasn't long until a cold chill began to creep up her back. Just as she and Nathan had recognized the creature's presence in the abandoned farmhouse, she knew it was nearby.

She let her senses range out. But if Sufri was within striking range, it was _very_ good at concealing itself.

Diarwen stepped up her pace. If she stumbled onto Sufri, her sword was loose in its sheath. But she had to find that boy.

A clearing, formed by a fallen tree, glowed in the moonlight. Diarwen made out a dark shape in the center of it. A young man, in a tee-shirt and cargo shorts. She crouched to turn him face up, weight balanced on the balls of her feet.

Sightless eyes stared beyond her. His throat was torn out, but he hadn't been desecrated; they were too close to Sufri for the thing to engage in its favorite pastime.

A phone lay near his hand, still recording video. She turned it off and pocketed it, and drew her hand over the boy's eyes. Taking something from the dead felt wrong, but the poor lad might have caught something on video that would save others.

The killing was so recent that his blood was still liquid. The boy himself was beyond help, but perhaps something of his shade still lingered near...she set the wards, and made the change from mundane to magical consciousness before she drew her thumb across the blade of her sword and let a few drops of her blood mingle with his. _"My life to your life," _she chanted in Sidhe,_ "my blood to your blood, show me to your killer that I might avenge you."_

That done, she called Lennox. "I found the young man. Sufri is close. Join me when you can."

Lennox replied, "On our way. Watch your six."

"Tell that to Sufri," she answered, her voice as cold as the heart of a glacier. "This ends tonight."

Diarwen pocketed her phone and stood, looking around her, letting the spell reveal the trail. Traces of black mist, deeper than the night, led her into the forest. She let her own aura cling to the underbrush as well, a trail blazed clearly for Adele.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Optimus Prime and both sets of twins had a hard run up from Champaign. That was better than having to dawdle at the speed limit on the local roads.

They were saved from dawdling by a twenty-one-year-old deputy and a Saleen S7 Twin-Turbo. Seized in a drug raid, repainted in the black and white livery of the Champaign County Sheriff's Department, its top rating was 248 mph.

Optimus had the edge on a straightaway, but they were few and far between on this route. They were running flat out, sliding through the curves behind the safety shield of the deputy's siren. The less-experienced Little Twins were fighting to keep pace without landing wheels-up in a cornfield.

When they arrived at the ranger station, the driver got out, shoved every freckle he owned into an enormous grin, and said, "Whoo-ee! That sure was some kinda fun!"

Optimus, despite the situation, grinned back. He could feel Diarwen and the others in the distance, and knew they were safe: that did a great deal to take the pressure off. "Indeed. It was a pleasure, deputy."

Another deputy pulled kevlar and rifles out of the car, and distributed it; a third set the rifles and ammo around. Sides, Sunny, Skids and Mudflap all crowded around to admire the Saleen and talk to the young driver, who was just as interested in talking to them.

The older deputy checked his rifle and slung it over his back; all the others did the same, the driver not interrupting his conversation with Skids.

The radio crackled to life with Lennox' voice. "Engaging pursuit. Get up here!"

Optimus pinged Ironhide. ::Where are you?::

The weapons specialist sent his location.

::Is Diarwen with you and Chromia?::

::Pit, no, she sent Chromia back with a buncha civilians and went tracking that thing! She's the one who found it.::

Optimus' engine roared as he fairly flew over the narrow park road.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Diarwen tracked Sufri through a wetland between two water-filled strip-mine pits. A strip of so-called "dry" land less than ten yards wide, once a rough road used only by mining equipment, was flanked on either side by muddy, cattail-filled bogs. They grew to the edge of the steep drop-offs into the watery pits. Diarwen was about thirty yards from the end of it, where a meadow sloped up to a forest.

Sufri was close. Once again, the wildlife had gone quiet as the small creatures of the wood sensed the presence of a top predator. Once again, the very air seemed laden with a dank chill.

This was as good a place as any, terrain that would hamper something so large but still leave her plenty of room to move. She ignited her sword, and taunted, "Sufri! You said you would devour me—here I am, come if you dare!"

_**"Fool of a Sidhe, are you in a hurry to end your life?"**_

"I am in a hurry to end yours!"

For a moment they stared at each other across fifty yards of muddy bog. Then, with a war cry and a roar, they leapt at each other, both eager to finish what had been started at the old farm.

In that first pass, Diarwen felt a massive paw sweep by her, and pinked the outside of it. The creature roared when an attempt to drain her life force to heal the injury was stymied by her strong shields. Her shouted "A-_ha!"_ was worthy of Sideswipe at his most annoying.

Chromia had asked how they were going to keep the creature from assuming its mist form and disappearing. Diarwen had been giving that due consideration, and now she knew she had the answer. She would make Sufri so furious that running would be the last thing on its mind.

Sufri was fast, too fast to risk a kill strike this early in the game. She had learned that in their first encounter. Instead, she harried it, a nip here, a lash of fire there, allowing her aura to burn the bright, clear red of a dominance challenge—maddening to any predator.

Sufri took the bait, and stood up on its back legs in an impressive see-how-big-I-am threat display.

It took an ion cannon blast right in the chest that sent it crashing into the trees on the other side of the meadow.

Diarwen pressed the attack, knowing that if she gave it time to think, Sufri might realize the odds had changed and run. Instead, she thrust at its eye, not risking full extension. It jerked and took a steaming scratch down the cheek.

Behind her, she heard the sounds of transformation as the rest of the Autobots arrived behind Optimus. People were shouting orders, as the humans got into the best position to shoot. Diarwen was suddenly very glad she was carrying an easily-visible flaming sword_._

Optimus came by her on the right and she sidestepped, knowing now exactly how much room he needed. His energon sword struck home, opening a long gash along the creature's shoulder and ribs that bled black mist. He took a vicious slap that dented his shoulder armor. Sparks flew as long claws scraped metal.

Diarwen darted under the fight to strike where the creature's Achilles' tendon should have been, and danced out of the way of a retaliatory blow.

Sufri dodged into the trees. There were shouts and curses, but Diarwen yelled, "It has not gone far!"

They had to split up to search the dark forest. Ironhide stayed on Optimus' right, out of his way but ready to cover him if necessary.

Too late, the ancient black mech realized that he was the prey. The creature jumped on his back, ripping and clawing at less well-armored areas.

Chromia skated up beside her mate, energon tracer fire ripping from her autocannons. That startled Sufri, giving an injured Ironhide the chance to drop out of its crippling embrace, roll, and fire a cannon blast point blank.

Everyone for yards around was sprayed with black mist that clung like blood and smelled like a combination of decomposing flesh and sulfur.

Sufri bellowed and crashed into the woods, pursuers baying at its heels. Only Chromia remained behind, to see to her mate.

Optimus alone could keep up with the creature, and that only by charging straight through the trees. The resulting spear-sized flying splinters kept the rest at a safe distance.

The Prime tackled Sufri, resorting to a punch dagger because if he gave himself the room to use his larger weapons, the creature would flee again. He did not wish to risk losing it in the trees.

In the heat of battle, trading blows with the thing, he didn't notice a falling power-level indicator on his HUD until Diarwen's warning shriek sounded at the same time as an alarm.

No damage explained the sudden power loss—Sufri was draining him, and could by extension do the same thing to any other Cybertronian.

Then, with a flash of white fire, a thrust of great force seemed to erupt from Optimus, which he was very sure he had nothing to do with, and he and Sufri were thrown apart from each other. Optimus took down a tree on his way to the ground. He didn't see what happened to Sufri, scrambling to his peds after a sweep showed him no humans had been hit by his unexpected flight.

He was aware that the minor shields Diarwen had taught him had flared to full strength, and that the Matrix was responsible. That, too, had to be prioritized for later examination.

Chromia, Tyler and Lennox were firing, and the others joined in as they reacquired their target. Lennox' explosive rounds were the most effective, but the creature wasn't made of flesh and blood. It seemed to have no vital spots.

Sufri swiped at Diarwen, and a claw caught in her BDU jacket. The creature dashed her into a large tree. Fortunately the jacket ripped before it could pull her up, and smash her into something else.

A ball of fire shot from Adele's hand as she tried to draw Sufri off Diarwen. It turned on her, and she made to dive for cover—but slipped in the mud, badly twisting her ankle, looking her death in the face as Sufri loomed over her from his thirty-foot height.

But then something _huge _landed right beside her—Optimus' ped—and there was a deafening clang as he intercepted Sufri's charge with his shield. He pushed Sufri off and brought his sword around in an arc, fire sheeting off its trailing edge.

Tyler's hands caught Adele under the armpits, and he dragged her bodily out of the line of fire.

Sideswipe flanked the creature, challenging it with blades flashing. Sufri was injured, and here was an unshielded aura: it made a lunge, intending to suck Sideswipe dry. But the silver twin was _fast, _pivoting out of its way across the duff under the trees.

Too late, Sufri realized the frontliner's attack had been a diversion. Optimus' sword came down and clove the creature in two.

Venting hard to cool overheated systems, Optimus knelt. Both halves of Sufri were still squirming, reaching toward each other, and he understood, suddenly, what had to be done to prevent its survival...and return. A horrid death, but Sufri had inflicted many such.

He opened a wrist port, and sprayed both parts with hot energon. It needed only the touch of his sword to ignite them.

For a moment, they all—humans, Sidhe, Cybertronians, Fomor—watched it burn, speechless. Then, Optimus got his wits about him. "Is everyone all right? Sound off!"

One by one, they did so. All of them. His family of the moment was safe; he felt faint with relief.

Movement in the treetops caught Optimus' attention. He looked up as two birds, the larger a sandhill crane and the smaller a red-tailed hawk, flew down and circled him once, then disappeared into the night sky.

Diarwen shouted something in Sidhe. Both the crane and the hawk answered.

Optimus looked for Diarwen as he subspaced his weapons. Stunned by the impact when Sufri threw her, she was trying to get up; Lennox stopped her until they could make sure it was safe for her to do so. Ironhide limped up, and Adele could put no weight on her ankle, but those were the extent of their serious casualties. There were other assorted cuts and bruises, chiefly from flying debris, but nothing of any consequence.

"Diarwen?" he said, kneeling beside her. "Are you all right?"

The Sidhe flashed him a smile. "I am sure of it, Optimus, but I am being nannied," she said, and jerked her head toward Lennox.

Who snorted. "Well, go ahead and get up, then," he said. "See if I care."

She grinned, and got to her feet. "I thank you for your concern, Will, and I shall have the doctor inspect me when we return home. Will that allay your concern?"

"Wasn't concerned," said the Colonel, with a bad attempt at nonchalance, and walked off.

The Sidhe and the Prime grinned at one another.

End Chapter 6


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Disclaimers in Chapter 1

(A.N.: Spirit01, if you would like an answer to the question in your review, please enable private messaging and PM me again. Thanks! /A.N.)

Long after dawn, Diarwen, Optimus Prime, Lennox, LeGrand and Sheriff Briggs all remained firm with park personnel. The Middlefork Woods Nature Preserve was closed, and it would remain so until a government agency, name not supplied, had finished its CSI work. The Preserve might miss a few days' revenue, but larger issues were at stake here.

Ordinarily Tyler would have been able to order everyone involved to keep quiet about what had happened. But with Optimus Prime, Colonel Lennox, and the formidable Sheriff Briggs, he asked politely. He expected, and received, their assurance that they and those under their command would keep what they knew to themselves.

Adele was arguing with two paramedics that she did not need to go to a hospital, and that she did not need pain killers. Tyler intervened, although he knew she would have won the argument: no one can be given a medication without consent unless unconscious, Adele would not be browbeaten into consenting, and she wasn't about to lose consciousness. Further, he figured if it hurt badly enough she'd do something about it—although he wouldn't be satisfied until an x-ray proved her swollen and bruised ankle was not broken.

Briggs got her people together and, job completed, they climbed into their squad cars to go home.

The two Champaign County deputies didn't have an excuse now to prove how fast that Saleen could go, but Optimus was not sure they needed one, beyond a siren and a stretch of open road.

Optimus rested in alt form, with Diarwen sitting in his cab. Nearby, Ironhide was impatiently submitting to Chromia's and Will's temporary repairs until they could get him home to Ratchet.

Ironhide jerked hard, and that made the back of Will's hand hit a hot energon line. He yelled, "Ow! Dammit, Hide, hold still!"

"You try holdin' still with some slagger pokin' around in your guts!"

Chromia said, "It hurts because you got a piece of armor bent down in there, and it's gotta go before it cuts you up worse than it has already!"

Their patient settled down to a low grumbling growl, until Chromia grabbed the offending armor shard and pulled it straight out. Ironhide bucked and let out a loud, pained stream of Cybertronian speculation on Sufri's ancestry and mating habits. Chromia's fields meshed firmly with his until the pain subsided, then she drew them in and she and Will went back to arranging a temporary patch.

Optimus had only enough energy to be grateful that his foster father wasn't badly injured. He couldn't be, as long as he was complaining that loudly.

Skids and Mudflap recharged in the sun. The Big Twins kept an eye on them, Sunstreaker in alt form, Sideswipe sprawled lazily across a couple of parking spots as he cleaned his blades and complained about mud.

Blessed normality.

Diarwen commented, "That was quite a display from the Matrix. Has she ever done such a thing before?"

"No. Nor has anyone ever referred to the Matrix as feminine before."

He turned his attention inward, to the Matrix' scintillating presence next to his spark. This time, there was an answering resonance, light, definitely femme...a _sparkling?_

His startled reaction nearly shook Diarwen out of her seat. "Optimus!"

"My apologies, but this is new. See for yourself, can you separate the Matrix' aura from my own?"

"Not entirely, but—Holy Brigit! She has a spark of her own!"

"Indeed. That never appeared to be the case before, but I wonder..." Optimus sent a calming pulse through his bond to the Matrix, and felt a sleepy return pulse, _safe/warm/parent-is-here_.

Diarwen stared. "Do you mean to tell me that you have been carrying another bot around inside you, and you were not even aware of it?"

"There has never been an indication before that the Matrix was sentient, much less a sparked being. I do not think she was fully self-aware before she defended me from Sufri. Before that, her spark and personality were concealed within the All-Spark energy. It is as if Sufri's attack woke her from stasis-lock. Her retaliatory strike was spark-level programming at work."

"What is her condition now?"

"In recharge, as best I can tell."

"What happens now?"

"Nothing, Diarwen. Nothing. Say nothing of this until we return home. I need to meditate on it before I will know what, if anything, must be done."

"Of course."

"What is your sense of the Matrix—of her?"

"Similar to you, but her aura is that of a child, not an adult. Pure, innocent. Beyond that, very little. Your aura is too strong. What can you tell me?"

"Her spark is that of any sparkling, much smaller and more delicate than that of an adult, yet she has a great deal of power at her disposal."

"How did an artifact such as the Matrix gain a living spark? Oh, Optimus, to be trapped in such a thing—"

"I know," Optimus said, troubled. "I wonder if it would be possible, or advisable, to create a frame for her. As it is, she can only interact with the world outside herself through me—and had I known I was taking an innocent sparkling into battle, Diarwen—!"

"But you did not know. And is she truly a sparkling, or a very, very old being, newly returned?"

Optimus smiled. "Who knows? The Matrix was a creation of Prima, the first Prime, and was the hilt of his sword. That weapon, the Star Saber, is nothing short of a legend among my people. The Matrix was also the key to the Solar Harvester. In those early days, Diarwen, my people had not yet settled on a standard protoform to house most sparks. The frames of our ancestors took a much wider variety of forms. Not all were mobile. In fact, it was the second generation of Cybertronians who conceived of the T-cog—transformation cog—the organ, or mechanism, which allows us to take an alt form. Some of the First Ones reformatted into frames with the ability, others did not. It is entirely plausible that the Matrix was content with the form it had, in that life. That spark would have gone into the Well of All Sparks with Prima, Diarwen, if it was in fact sparked. This is a new spark inhabiting a very old frame. The reuse of an existing frame has never been common, but it's hardly unknown, either. When a bot deactivated due to spark failure and the frame was still in good condition, the families would take the frame to the All Spark to be resparked. Often this was the reincarnation of the previous...owner, if you will, returned to be raised as a new member of the same family. But still, the new person was a sparkling. That may be what happened here, when the energy of the All-Spark left Sam to inhabit the Matrix. But no matter how many lives she has lived before, or even if indeed she was the Matrix before, it makes no difference. She is a sparkling now, and deserves to be protected as such."

"Yes, she does. And it would make sense...the All-Spark was the source of life for your people, and therefore very likely an avatar of the Goddess, or at least, sacred to Her. It would explain the feminine aspect of this new spark."

"Diarwen, will you join me in meditation when we have the opportunity? Your insight may be important. I've mentioned before that much knowledge was lost when the Temple of Iacon was destroyed. That included much of what we knew of both the All-Spark and the Matrix."

"Of course I will," she replied.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Several days passed before they had the opportunity to do that. They rolled into the main hangar to find Barricade frantic, two of the trine flying around his helm screeching at the upper limit of their little vocalizers, and the third nowhere to be seen. Jolt was trying to reason with Barricade, and Ratchet also was not in evidence.

Optimus let Diarwen out and transformed. "What's going on here?"

"One of those Pit-be-damn' Army trucks ran into Skysong and no one will admit who the fragger was drivin' it!" Barricade roared.

"Where is she? Is she all right?"

"No, she's not all right! Ratchet has her in medbay and he kicked everybot out!"

Jolt explained, "He needs room around the berth for the equipment and monitors, Barricade."

Lennox jumped down from Ironhide's running board. He had to get to the bottom of this, but he had seen frantic parents—hell, he had _been_ a frantic parent—often enough to know Barricade might stomp first and ask questions later. Putting as much anger into his voice as he could, for Barricade's benefit, he bellowed, "All right, if nobody's going to claim responsibility, I want all of you drivers in my office _now! _Any of the rest of you who saw _anything_, I want your reports on my desk yesterday. Now, _move it!"_

That sent people flying, and Lennox stalked off to his office giving the impression that he was about to shoot someone.

If he found out someone's carelessness, or worse, had gotten one of the sparklings hurt, he wasn't sure he _wouldn't_ shoot someone.

That gave Optimus a chance to take Barricade aside. "What has Ratchet said?"

"Nothing yet, he's still working on her. All I can tell is, she's still in stasis lock." Anger gave way to outright terror.

"What happened?"

"I had them playing outside between the buildings like they always do. Epps brought in one of those little remote control helicopters, and they were havin' a ball chasin' it. Then the supply convoy came in from Nellis. Song flew out there—and the next thing I knew, I heard a crash, and the mechlings were screaming. She busted the windshield and ended up on the front seat of the truck. But by the time I got there, all those squishies were ganged up in a bunch, and none of them would admit who the slagger was who ran into her."

Optimus felt a sick sense of dread.

Jolt said, "If I may. Barricade, you need to reassure the mechlings and calm them. Skysong needs for her trine to be strong right now. No matter how deeply in stasis lock she is, she's still aware of them on some level, and their panic isn't doing her any good."

Optimus said, "Barricade, it doesn't matter how it happened—_Skysong_ is all that matters right now. Follow Jolt's instructions and leave the rest to Colonel Lennox."

"Yes, Prime," he said, though the rage still boiled in his fields. He sat down near the medbay entrance, holding the mechlings and trying to calm them down. Flareup and Arcee went over to help, which was good, Optimus thought; right now, Barricade's energy was anything but reassuring.

Optimus asked Wheeljack, "Did you see anything?"

"No, Optimus, I was in my lab. But Jazz has already secured the video of the accident."

Lennox slammed his office door behind him and glared at the soldiers lined up inside. He yelled, "Report!"

Lennox turned off his office nannycam, and the recording devices as well, leaving intact only the channel Optimus alone had access to. No electronic record of this could exist anywhere Barricade might access it until he had calmed enough to be safe.

One of the drivers took a step forward. "Sir. I was the driver. I didn't even see her—she came almost straight down, hit the windshield, bounced off the dashboard and landed in the shotgun seat. I didn't even know what hit me at first. She was all tore up—I just reacted—there were energon lines spraying so I just got pressure on 'em as quick as I could. Binns jumped in and helped me. Colonel, I swear it was an accident. Oh, God, I can't _believe_ I hit a kid!"

Both men's hands were terribly blistered and raw. Lennox opened his door and told Graham, "Bring Parker here, and send me a stenographer with the highest possible security clearance."

"Sir," said Graham, locked his computer and his desk, and told his own aide, "You have the conn until I get back."

Lennox shut the door behind him, and said, "Okay, guys, tell me what happened. The only way we're going to get out of this mess is by making sure it doesn't happen again."

The sergeant in charge of the detail said, "Colonel, it was my responsibility to keep my men from saying who was driving that truck. I know—if it was one of my kids—I could imagine what Barricade would do. And they'd put it all on him."

"That was good thinking, Sarge." Lennox made a note to put Sgt. Ramirez on the fast track to direct interaction with the Autobots.

The stenographer arrived, and was seated.

"Okay, Barton and Ditraglia, medic's on the way. In the meantime, guys, your own words. Barton?"

The driver swallowed. He made an admirable report, neither stressing nor glossing over his own responsibility.

Binns' own report was no less admirable.

Meanwhile, Optimus left Barricade in the care of the Sisters while he checked with Jazz, but found the mainframe only minimally active. Mirage explained, "He said he would be with the sparkling, Prime. I have the impression that he doesn't expect her to live."

"How fast could they have been driving in the _parking lot?"_

Mirage sent him a copy of the video file. The trucks had been well below the speed limit, and the small amount of dust they raised testified to it. Skysong had dived straight at the windshield of the lead vehicle, wings tucked in, talons extended, stooping on her prey.

Optimus replayed the moments before the crash, although seeing it again was the last thing he wanted.

The sun was reflected in the windshield, and beside it, a flash of blue and white mirrored the little femme's colors. She had apparently been trying to grab her own reflection.

It had been an accident. That was all. An accident as much a consequence of seeker programming as anything else.

Optimus said to Mirage, "I want you to be ready to restrain Barricade if Skysong doesn't make it. Don't harm him if you can prevent it, but I don't want him to have a chance to do anything that he'd have to answer to the humans for."

The spy nodded understanding. "Prime, I have been thinking since I first saw that video. The areas in Vos where sparkling seekers were allowed to fly freely were isolated from adult traffic. When I was there on missions, I happened to see them playing a few times. There were flying drones that they chased in the same way that grounder sparklings play with a ball. The larger sparklings tended to catch it more often. The smaller ones grew frustrated and dived at anything else available, including their caretakers or one another. I think that may be why Skysong was distracted by the reflection in the truck's windshield."

Optimus nodded. "When the emergency is over, we'll need to arrange for a safer place for them to play. There's too much we don't know about them."

Mirage wandered out and asked casually if there was any news, though he already knew there was not. When Chromia said as much, he sat down nearby to wait with them.

Inside medbay, Ratchet had done everything possible to stabilize the little seekerling. The damage that she had taken crashing through the glass was severe, with several major lines severed, and in consequence she had lost a great deal of energon. All that had saved her was that she had been flying in the sun, and the power reserves that supplied her spark and processor had been at full capacity. Her engines could shut down for lack of fuel without immediately depriving vital systems of energy.

Damaged plating, torn lines, and bent struts could be remedied. The worst thing was spark shock, which could be deadly to an adult, much less a tiny, fragile sparkling.

Her most vulnerable core systems had fritzed on impact, and she had barely reset at all. It was as if Primus were holding her in His hands, helping her to cling to life one moment at a time. Ratchet had no way of knowing if she would boot up properly—if at all. That was up to powers other than his own right now.

The medic had taken the time to repair a little of the cosmetic damage, and arranged the tubes and leads that snaked under her armor so that they were less prominent. She deserved to have her trine with her, and they deserved not to see their sister looking like a jumble of spare parts.

For all the work Barricade had made for him over the vorns, Ratchet felt nothing but compassion for him now. The medic had never raised a sparkling of his own, and probably never would. There was no way he was going to let himself in for something like this happening to his own little one.

He washed up and went outside. "Barricade?"

When the medic stepped outside his domain, Barricade had swallowed, and gotten to his peds. "How is she?"

"Still with us. She's going to be critical for some time. The best thing for her now is to have you and her brothers with her."

Barricade closed his eyes, and swayed. Ratchet grabbed him, and kept him from falling. Embarrassed, Barricade shuffled his feet underneath himself, but not dropped either sparkling. He swallowed again. "Let's go."

Barricade sat on the edge of the berth, hovering his servo over Skysong's tiny helm, clearly afraid to touch her. One of her optics was cracked, and Ratchet had been unable to repair that damage for lack of a replacement. Wheeljack was working on that, but he would have let it wait until she was stronger, in any case.

Barricade had put Starskimmer and Stormwing gently on the berth beside Skysong, as if afraid he might wake her, on the side opposite the medical equipment. Their wings pulled tightly in, her trinemates huddled next to her, chirping softly.

Ratchet quietly prepared three doses of sedative, one large, two very small, and put them aside, praying never to have to use them. He kept replaying memories of Song flying around medbay, divebombing him and getting into everything. He wished now he'd let her climb the Pit-be-damn' meds cage—what really would have been the harm? Wire mesh was cheap and easily replaced, after all.

Ratchet had known from the beginning that having those slaggin' little Seekers around was going to be trouble. He just hadn't known how much that trouble would hurt.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Diarwen's weariness dropped from her awareness as she sat cross-legged on the desert sand, with the scent of juniper rising a charcoal block in front of her.

Her eyes were closed as she put all her concentration into raising healing energy. She had learned with Nathan that she did not have the ability to do this herself—she called on the energy of the land around her.

Softly chanting in Sidhe, the warrior remembered Skysong as she had been—in good health, flying for the sheer joy of it, or wrestling with her brothers, or perching on some high vantage point, head a-tilt as she observed the adults around her.

She visualized the negative energies of injury leaving the sparkling's little body, and being replaced by the warm healing power of the Mother.

She continued the working, ignoring the signals her body sent her as unimportant, until she fell unconscious in the sand.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Jazz sat unseen on the other side of the medical berth from Skysong's brothers and guardian. For a long time, he had been able to do very little except hold and comfort the spirit of a distraught little sparkling, caught between life and death as Ratchet worked frantically to repair her. Jazz did everything he could to help her stay, but if the Well called her, she would not be alone on that journey. The saboteur sensed a flow of energy to the little one, and traced it back to Diarwen; it was benign, and so he did nothing about it.

Then her brothers called out to her. She returned to her frame, transitioning from stasis lock to deep recharge.

The flow of energy stopped, as if someone had thrown a switch.

Jazz drifted up through the roof of the Quonset hut and glided over the desert. He found the stubborn Sidhe sprawled in the shade of an outcropping of rock, far enough from the buildings to be free of the effects of all that iron.

While she was in no immediate danger, he was not inclined to leave her where she had fallen in the service of the sparkling.

He sighed as he slipped back into his mainframe. Controlling it was just enough like being alive to bring up memories he would rather keep locked away. He activated his sensors, sent Optimus a ping.

When he sent it, Lennox, with whom Optimus was examining the video of the accident, had just said, "Sorry, Optimus, but seeing that, at that angle, with the sun in his eyes? That's beyond human capacity. If you doubt me, run a Google search on 'coming out of the sun.'"

More out of curiosity than any doubt of Lennox, Optimus did, and found that such was an accepted part of early aerial warfare among humans. In fact, diving from a steep angle with the sun at her back might very well be an innate tactic for Skysong as well. Optimus said, "Yes, I see. So the driver was not at fault—" and fell silent as Jazz pinged him.

::Yes, Jazz.::

::Better go pick up your elf, Bossbot. She was helpin' Starsong and passed out, up by Buzzard Rock.::

::What?::

Jazz repeated himself, with a few more details this time. Optimus cut the connection, and passed on to Lennox what Jazz had told him.

"She's been pushing herself too hard since Chicago," Lennox scowled, and grabbed his jacket.

"I have no standing to give her orders, though I will try to persuade her to rest," Optimus said. "But right now, I am going to go get her."

_"We_ are going to go get her," Lennox said firmly. "Let's move."

Buzzard Rock had been named by the NEST army brats during their previous posting. It wasn't far from camp, and served as the main landmark in that direction, easily visible from most of the west side of the base. Directions to places lying that way usually started "Go to Buzzard Rock and..."

Optimus rolled up to Diarwen, decanted Lennox, and transformed, scanning. Her energy levels were low. If she were a bot he would know what to do, but there weren't direct parallels with human organics, much less with a completely different species such as Diarwen. He couldn't detect anything wrong with her other than exhaustion, though.

Her dagger and incense burner were lying there. That meant before assisting Skysong, she probably had cast a circle, and he had learned better than to break a circle. He was not sure, however, if doing so was bad manners, or dangerous; either way, he wasn't leaving her there.

He put a servo out as Lennox began to walk into the circle. "A moment, Will. This is sacred space."

Will stopped dead. "What now?"

"I don't know. I'm not sure if breaking a circle is bad manners, or actually dangerous."

"We've gotta get her back to help."

"Yes." The incense was burned out. He knew she always left the ashes, so, feeling a little silly for speaking to thin air, he apologized for walking into the circle and thanked all the spirits and deities who had assisted Diarwen in her working. Leaving the ashes on the sand, he subspaced the knife and incense burner. Last, he asked Will to pick her up, and put her down gently on his front seat.

They didn't have far to go. Will clung to Optimus' side mirror and door, and enjoyed the hell out of the ride, circumstances notwithstanding. When the Prime pulled up in front of medbay, he leapt down, and went shouting for Parker.

When Lennox and Dr. Parker got Diarwen out of his cab and onto a bed in the human medbay without waking her, Optimus was convinced that Lennox' "working too hard" theory was absolutely correct.

Parker pinned the "NO IRON OR STEEL" signs that she kept printed out and ready to the curtains around Diarwen's bed, and carefully tucked several layers of towels around the railings to protect her patient from coming into contact with them. Everything brought inside those curtains had to be plastic, or preferably glass.

Diarwen's medical problems made Parker stop and think about every single thing they normally did for an unconscious patient. Her first order after taking vitals would normally have been to start an IV. She got down a specially fabricated silver IV set in order to do that, and did it herself rather than delegating the task to a nurse, in order to be absolutely certain that the correct tray was used. Likewise, a custom saline solution had to be hung; Diarwen's electrolyte balance was different than a human's. Getting her hydrated and cooled down was all that Parker could do until she woke up, unless her condition worsened severely. Her patient could not be given the standard human medications, or indeed _any_ human medications. "Sidhe" only remotely resembled "human," chemically.

When Diarwen woke up, she would know which of her own herbal remedies were appropriate.

Optimus kept an optic on the human side of medbay. Fifteen minutes later, Parker assured him, "It's exhaustion—possibly a little of the heat exhaustion variety as well. She needs rest and plenty of fluids, but she should be fine in a day or two. Light duty for a week after that. Ah...good luck with that, by the way."

Lennox said, half-seriously, "Duct tape her to the bed?" and Optimus replied, "Do I hear you volunteering for that?"

"Not on your life." Lennox was no one's dummy and a fair strategist to boot.

"Then may I suggest we call in an expert."

"Sarah?"

"I was thinking of Chromia, but we can certainly enlist Sarah's help as well."

"Good call. Have you heard anything about Skysong recently?" Lennox asked.

"Ratchet said a few minutes ago that she's recharging well and her self-repair protocols are online. That's very good news."

"Thank God. Little kids can get themselves into dangerous situations _so_ damn fast. And no matter how hard you try, you can't watch them every second."

Optimus said, "No one could have predicted that she would be distracted by her own reflection in a windshield, and she's much too young to comprehend the danger."

"We could build them a play area in the canyon. They'll have shade there, and they won't see anything to lure them into traffic."

Optimus nodded. "That's a good idea."

"Wonder if we shouldn't build a playground for all the kids there. Ours don't have any swing sets or anything like that either. Do you think they'd get hurt playing together?"

"H'mm. The sparklings' core programming has always been to avoid actual harm to their playmates, and they always have shown much more restraint when diving on humans than on one another. Obviously they do understand that you are less resistant to damage. But the adult humans here may have given them the wrong impression about the resilience of civilians, especially children. They may have to be taught that they can play more roughly with NEST soldiers than they can with their classmates. Also the children will have to be trained to be careful with them—a child could damage a sparkling with a hard kick in the wrong place. But I think the benefits of having them grow up playing together will far outweigh the risks."

Lennox nodded, and decided that the quickest way to get a playground built would be to turn it over to the household sixes. They'd have a committee and fund-raisers organized by nightfall.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Ratchet examined the readouts of a surreptitious scan of Barricade. The black and white ex-'Con had yet to recover completely from his near starvation, and the stress of Skysong's accident was doing him no good at all. Skysong was going to be out for a long time, though her condition was steadily improving. He ordered, "Cade, get on that next berth and recharge. She'll need you awake when she's awake, and that won't be for a joor or two."

"What about the mechlings?"

"Do they look like they're going anywhere?"

The mech's big servos gently stroked their wings. "All right, but if anything happens, and I mean _anything_-"

"I promise, Cade," the medic said.

Ratchet had seen the megavorns of war create many a sea change, some for good, some for ill. Few had been as profound or as swift as Barricade's progression from Decepticon frontliner to loving parent. It was almost enough to make Ratchet rethink his cynical outlook...almost.

Five minutes later, the mech was out cold. Ratchet didn't like the way he was recharging, and plugged a booster cable into his wrist port; Barricade didn't even stir.

Jolt got the mechlings some energon and persuaded them to drink it. After that, they too dropped into recharge, and the medbay fell quiet. The two medics began to put the mess of an emergency to rights and restock everything, but neither strayed very far from their tiny patient.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Diarwen awakened to light in her eyes, and something stabbed her arm as she tried to get up. Gentle servos restrained her, and she focused on Chromia's sky-blue optics. "You're to stay right where you are."

"Skysong?"

"Still here," Chromia assured her. "What did you do?"

"Healing magic. I had no idea if techniques meant for my kind would work for yours, but I had to try."

"Ratchet tells me that whatever you did jump-started her self-repair protocols. If there aren't any new complications she should recover, given time."

"Will she be able to fly?"

"We don't know yet," Chromia said. "We don't have the materials to make full repairs to a sparkling frame. Wheeljack will fabricate what he can, but in the end, we can only provide her with the raw materials and hope her self-repair systems can do the rest. But thanks to you, she has the chance."

Diarwen held out her hand, then closed it and lay back, eyes drifting shut. "I hope it was enough. If it isn't...I have not the magic to light a match."

"Oh, Diarwen! Do you mean...permanently...?"

"I know not. But, Chromia, truly, if I traded what little magic I had left for the life of a sparkling, it was a good bargain." She tried again to get up.

"Oh, no you don't! You're staying right there."

"I certainly am not, I need the necessary."

"Let me ask the doctor. You may have to make do with a bedpan."

Parker, however, had mercy, but cautioned Diarwen about the IV pole. Chromia pushed that, and stood right outside the door until the Sidhe was ready to return to her bed.

That little adventure impressed on her just how much of her energy she had spent; she was shaking when she lay back down.

Chromia stayed with her until late that evening, when Diarwen persuaded her to get some recharge herself.

A few moments later, a small six-wheeled...lunar rover?...pushed open the door with a servo arm and came over. She sensed an aura and looked closer. _"Optimus?"_

His warm laughter issued from her small visitor. "This is Roller, who allows me to get into some of these smaller areas of the base."

"Roller, how do you do?"

Roller, a being not entirely dependent upon Optimus for his existence, giggled, which surprised a rumbling chuckle out of Optimus. "He's not really self-aware. Not quite a drone, not quite a symbiont, but I was using him on a very small planet when a severe ion storm struck. He's been himself ever since."

"Ah. Well, better polite than its opposite," Diarwen said.

"Indeed. And his size was quite useful during the war."

"Creating all manner of trouble for the Decepticons, I would think?"

"You would think rightly," he said lightly. "How are you?"

"In need of a few days spent shackled to this bed, or so I am told," she replied, complete with glower.

Chromia had mentioned the possibility that she had burned out her magic, but if Diarwen didn't say anything about that, Optimus would not bring it up. "Then you must put up with it," he said. "I would prefer not to find you face down in the sand again any time soon."

"You were the one who brought me home? I was wondering how I got from there to here."

"Jazz realized something was wrong when the energy that you were supplying to Skysong cut off. He found you, and alerted me; Lennox and I went to get you."

"Then I owe all three of you my thanks."

"You owe us nothing. Ratchet is fairly sure now that Skysong will live. You kept her alive long enough for him to make the repairs that she needed. For that, we owe you more than thanks can ever begin to express."

"It was not my doing. The Mother worked through me."

"You were willing to ask Her to do so."

"I would not be worth the air that I breathe or the room that I take up if I were not," she said, and closed her eyes. "What have you discovered of our other sparkling?"

"Not a thing," he said, respecting her need to change the subject. "The Matrix has returned to her former quiescent state. If I did not already know that she is a sparked being in her own right, I would not be able to tell by examining her now. I attempted to have Ratchet examine her, but she took on her sand form whenever he tried."

"Sand form?" She opened her eyes.

"Yes, the Matrix decides who is going to use her, and if she objects, she can turn herself to sand. How she does that—where her spark goes when she does—is beyond our knowledge. Apparently she did so when Sam first found her, and got to travel around the Middle East tied up in his sock."

"I hope that was not too great an affront to her dignity," Diarwen laughed.

He smiled, but the sunken patches of darkness beneath her eyes alarmed him. "You should sleep, Diarwen."

"It is not as though I can help it," she grumbled. "I would at least rest better in my own bed."

"Dr. Parker is going to keep you here as long as you have that IV."

"I can remedy that-"

"Don't you dare."

"Ah, you are no fun," she teased.

"Sleep, Diarwen. This is only a passing annoyance. Soon you will be up to your usual mischief."

She sighed. "I know, my friend. Boredom and I have never been comfortable companions."

"I believe that."

She closed her eyes again, and then he was gone, and it was morning.

End Chapter 7


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Disclaimers in Chapter 1

The next night, Diarwen was relieved of the IV and set free to return to her quarters, because Parker could tell that the Sidhe was not going to be doing much besides lying around and napping. She left medbay by way of the bots' side, in order to visit with Skysong for a little while. Chromia was there already, talking with Barricade.

When she got there, though, Ratchet was checking on Skysong with his back to the room. He didn't turn around, demanded, "Does Dr. Parker know you're out?"

"She signed my release form. How is the little one?"

"Better. Long way to go," he replied, without looking up.

Diarwen could see nothing from the floor, but she didn't want to crowd Ratchet, and Skysong's aura was much stronger. So the Sidhe smiled and nodded to Chromia, then began the long walk to her quarters.

Barricade asked Chromia, "Is it just me, or is she having trouble?"

Chromia said, "It isn't just you. She just got out of medbay. I'll be back when I can."

She gave Ratchet a whack on the leg on her way past. "Whatever your malfunction is—get over it!"

"What?"

"Stop being so snarky to Diarwen! It's uncalled for, and you know it."

"_You _don't know that. Get off my case."

Chromia didn't bother to reply, and caught up with Diarwen. "I'll take you home," she said, ducking to get through the humans' door. She transformed as soon as they got outside.

"Thank you. I appreciate that. It's only one building over, but it might as well be the Moon." She looked around her. "Gods above, I am knocked down far enough to feel the effects of the iron!"

Chromia took her to her door and went in with her.

"What did Dr. Parker say?"

"That the last patient she saw in my condition was a refugee, that I am to rest and that I am not to skip meals."

"I think that translates to allowing us to spoil you. And speaking of skipping meals, did she feed you before she let you leave?"

"Sarah brought me some very good chicken salad," she said.

Chromia quickly made up her bed and turned it down for her, then saw to it that she had her TV remote. "What's the matter with Ratchet, anyway? I thought you two got along."

"I thought we did too. But I have been a warrior for a long while, Chromia, and not everything in my history is dancing with fireflies on a warm summer evening."

"And that makes you different from all the rest of us, Ratchet included, how?"

"It is a misunderstanding," Diarwen said. "A story of which he knows only one side. It is one of those things that—if he does not recognize the necessity to begin with, then there is nothing I could say to bring him to understand what I did."

"Sweetspark, he should know you well enough to understand that if you did something terrible, you had an even more terrible reason to do it. I love Ratchet, he's the next thing to a brother to me, but you can't let him get to you when he's being an aft."

"Thank you, Chromia."

"He always means well. He can be judgmental and he has Unicron's own temper, but he loves...too much for a medic's own good. He loves all of us, mech, human, Sidhe, or purple people-eater, far, far too much for his own peace of mind."

Diarwen nodded. "That's why I can't be angry with him."

"But you can't let him keep you away from the sparklings. They're going to need everyone's support over the next few weeks, especially Song, of course, but Skimmer and Stormy too."

"That will be difficult. Ratchet's lost his trust in me. He won't want me near them."

Chromia nodded. "Well, Cade has the final word on that, and as far as he's concerned, you can do no wrong. Ratchet will come around one of these joors. He always does, though it sometimes takes a while. Despite his anger and his pride, his family will come first, always; he's just having trouble admitting you to it. Why, I don't know. Till it happens, leave him be."

Diarwen was rather too tired to think about it right now. This was precisely why Chromia, who could practically count the molecules in Diarwen's breath, gave her that news when she did. The Sidhe was a wreck, and Chromia was taking advantage of it.

But Diarwen was Sidhe, and the Sidhe rarely felt obligated to make snap judgments in the absence of a matter of life and death. Time and due consideration were in order. In fact, the former often solved problems without involving the latter.

Letting Ratchet upset her was abdicating her own power, Diarwen thought muzzily; the medic was a good person at spark. She would be patient with him, and thus honor his goodness. Silly old fellow.

Chromia said, "Why don't you get ready for bed. I'll put a kettle on for you, and you can have whatever sort of tea will help you rest."

"Thank you."

Diarwen felt marginally better, but no more awake, after a shower. By the time she got out, the kettle was whistling. Chromia stayed until her HUD insisted that she needed to rest also, pinged Arcee to stay with Diarwen and why, then left to check on Skysong and her family before going home.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

"No," Parker said firmly. "It's too early in your recovery for strenuous exercise. I absolutely forbid it."

The forbidee crossed her arms over her chest and glared at her doctor. "I cannot see what harm I will do myself by going beyond the rutting iron buildings to perform a Sword Dance!"

"It's not the Dance I'm worried about," Parker said dryly. "It's the getting to and from in this heat. Even the radiant effect of iron, which I can't measure but whose deleterious effects on you I accept, is less of a risk to you than exhausting yourself and collapsing again. Last time, we were lucky that Jazz was monitoring you. This time, we might not be."

"The two cases are not the same! When Jazz found me, I had been using magic. The Sword Dance is mundane. It requires no magic."

Parker sighed, her eyes on the chart. "Diarwen. I was aware of that. Please do not compel me to make a strong recommendation an order."

Diarwen's eyes flashed. "Then please do not compel me to disregard your orders, Doctor Parker, though it could cost me my family here if I do. I am honor-bound to keep my skills sharp as long as I draw breath. Now, when my magic may never return, my sword may be all that stands between the Dark and those I have sworn to protect, and is all I may have to save my own life as well. If I am forced to remain within these buildings without relief, I will perform my drills in my apartment. But, understand, if I do not get away from all this iron and spend some time in direct contact with Mother Earth every day, I will not heal, and I may very well begin to show symptoms of iron poisoning. Point me towards a worthy enemy, rather than ask me to die _that_ way."

Parker sighed, and Diarwen felt the woman's fright. Diarwen was _Parker_'s family when she was in medbay, and said patient could have whatever feelings she wished while that was true: Parker would do nothing to endanger her.

Parker, for her part, suddenly felt five years old again. She said , "I wasn't fully aware of your needs, Diarwen. Please, please, I beg you, keep me informed on these matters. Since you've told me this, I would have no objection if you went with someone who could transport you back, should the need arise. All the bots will have to know that you are a walking medical emergency. Can you deal with that?"

The Sidhe grumbled, "They already do, if I am not mistaken. That is a population among whom I have no more privacy than one of their own, chemically."

Parker knew that almost all of them, except perhaps Ratchet, acknowledged Diarwen as at least battle-kin, and most as more since she had saved Skysong's life. "Good. You have to have a bot go with you. I think we'll pay two of them, one working one orn, one the next, until you're better."

"Define 'better.'"

"I can't, until you get your Sidhe ass in here three days from now on the dot of−" her head tilted toward her upraised wrist−"two fourteen p.m. If I see you before then, it's because there's something you haven't remembered to tell me."

Diarwen, dead last in the base "Compliant Personality" contest, nodded slowly. "That is easy to accept."

"Now, then: what to watch out for. If you feel sick or woozy while you do the Dance, you are to stop, and if those feelings persist ten minutes after you've stopped, I want your Sidhe aft in here. Got it?"

"I understand you." That was not agreement. Her patient slid off the table.

"Hold on, I'm not finished. You can do that for three days, then I want to see you again, even if you've had no difficulty, so that I can measure your improvement."

Diarwen heaved a sigh whose volume seemed to be larger than her entire slender frame. "Very well. I understand. Three days from now at two fourteen p.m. If I forget I will call . I will see you then. Hopefully I will see you no sooner."

"I hope so too, but if I find out you needed to come in and didn't, I will be down on you like a ton of bricks. With rebar!" Parker shouted to her patient's retreating back, which so strongly reminded Diarwen of Ratchet that she gave a rather unwilling grin.

Then she stayed on base the rest of the day, sulking.

The next morning, early, she asked some NEST soldiers for a ride with them to the proving grounds. She worked through her forms once, but knew by the time she finished that pushing herself any further would do more harm than good.

Bumblebee had come over to watch over her, and when she finished her drill, he popped open his passenger door in silent invitation. With a smile, she said, "Thank you, Bee," and sat down. Bee turned on his cooling system for her, since he did that a lot for Carly lately.

Staring out Bee's windshield, Diarwen knew that in the long run, she wasn't sure that her diligence would make any difference. No matter how skilled a swordswoman she became, if her magic failed to return, she would fall to some enemy she herself had made. It would be only a matter of time before one of them realized that she could no longer channel the elements. Her battle would be over at that point.

Lughnasadh was coming through hot days that edged into late summer. Around the base, rain-dependent vegetation shriveled and died. The sun went forward, always, and now it approached the short day-long night period.

Everyone's life waxed and waned like the sun, and after the growing season always came the harvest. Diarwen looked out the window, and turned her face to that dying sun.

A roar of engines jarred her out of her reverie, two big mecha running full out, and she looked up to see Prime and Ironhide racing back from the far side of the proving grounds. An enormous arc of dust plumed up behind them, hanging in the still air an improbably long time.

She smiled—so Ironhide too had been released from medical restrictions. Racing was to Cybertronians as breathing was to an organic, and she suddenly understood why the DC base had been so unsuitable for them: it was simply far too small, and whatever other shortcomings they addressed, that one would have remained.

The two mecha transformed on the run, coming to a clanking, thunderous stop just short of the obstacle course.

From the scuffs of red and blue paint on Ironhide's armor, and the black streaks on Optimus', they had been sparring. Their auras were not those of the solemn leader and his forbidding 2iC, but, for once, simply those of two high-spirited fellows having a little fun. That was something she had never thought to see.

Ironhide had pushed himself to his limits—the only way to find out what they were. She wondered how close that had come to pushing Optimus to his own.

Chromia brought them each a cube of energon. Ironhide pulled her small blue frame into his side and she smiled up at him, optics bright and aura glowing with relief and joy.

Optimus subspaced his empty cube. He and Hide had a short exchange in Cybertronian, then the Prime came over to Bee. There was another series of the musical sounds of the bots' native language. Diarwen picked out the glyphs that were her own name—the direct translation, "silveroak-maiden," had morphed to "femme-silver," because their phrase for "tree" was about twelve glyphs long—never mind specifying _oak _tree, much less a species of oak which grew only in Tir-nan-Og.

There was a high-pitched whistle-click joining the two glyphs, a sound impossible for her to make. She would never be able to voice her own name in Cybertronian.

When Bee opened his door, she slid out with thanks and went to Optimus, who smiled and offered his hand to her. She stepped up and balanced lightly as he stood, a hand resting on a wrist plate more for his peace of mind than her own. She was not concerned about a fifteen-foot drop.

Optimus said, "You said that you would be willing to join me in meditation over the Matrix. Are you recovered enough to do that?"

"I believe so. For that matter, meditation normally rests me as much as sleep. Would you like to try it today?"

"Yes, things seem quiet enough right now that I can spare a joor."

-Sidhe Chronicles-

They stopped off at the base for visits to their respective washracks. Diarwen put on a light shift and sandals, which required her to be careful until she was outside the barracks and away from its concentration of cold iron, but she knew that she would do better without the BDUs and boots between her and Mother Earth.

Optimus took her up into the badlands, to the far corner of the base where it was only a short run through the desert to reach the road to Las Vegas. They went a short way up a narrow canyon, shadowed by the towering overhang of a sharply-cut stream bed, now dry in the heat, far from distractions.

Diarwen let Optimus choose a spot, then knelt in the sand, her cotton skirt spread around her as she sat back on her heels.

Most people thought on first glance that the desert was a barren place. She, child of the ice fields, knew better. Life was all around them. She reached out to it, let herself flow through it, and it through her. She soaked up the magic like a dry sponge, and a headache that she hadn't acknowledged, had not even really felt, ebbed.

Optimus unlocked his chest plates and withdrew the Matrix.

Diarwen's silver eyes filled with tears, and a hot hand squeezed her throat. She could not trust herself to speak.

He had just acknowledged her as one of his closest companions—the circle of family and dearest friends that they translated "cohort."

One's cohort, one's nearest and dearest, with whom one went shouting into battle. How very odd, Diarwen mused, that the word should mean the same to both a Roman legionary and a Cybertronian Prime.

And with that thought, the ache left her heart, and her attention shifted of its own accord to the Matrix.

Optimus said, "The Matrix holds the essence of all who have carried her. She remembers you."

"I was only a very small child at my mother's knee then," Diarwen said. "I remember the Wanderers, but not the Matrix. She still has the memory of the one who previously lived in that frame?"

"Guarding those memories is one of her primary functions," he replied. "I can only access them in a haphazard manner. There must be a better way. How long did the Original Primes remain with your people?"

"I am not certain—not long. All I recall now is that it was summer, and the summers were short then. Later, when I was older, it was explained to me that they did not want to draw the attention of the Fallen to us." Diarwen studied the Matrix' glittering silvery form. "Are you levitating her, or is she doing that herself?"

"She is, but she goes where I direct her. What can you tell of her, now that she isn't concealed within my fields?"

"Very little. She is shielding herself. Optimus, describe to me what it is that you intend to do, so that I can make sure I am not working at cross-purposes to you."

"I hope that it will be possible to communicate with the Original Primes by way of the Matrix. I already know that it works in the opposite direction. If anyone can tell me about her, it will be them."

Diarwen nodded, then asked, "Are you carrying the talisman that Moonsilver gave you?"

"Yes, I was going to ask you about that."

"Use it as a focus; concentrate on your intentions. It should allow you to project deliberately."

"Is it possible for you to accompany me?"

"If your ancestors permit," she replied.

"Diarwen, are you certain that you are putting yourself at no risk? This does not have to be done today."

"Spirit-walking is a psychic ability, not strictly magickal. There is no more than the usual risk. My...disability...is not a factor. Many humans who have no other paranormal ability of any kind can do this."

"Very well," he said, and turned his attention to the crystal.

Diarwen focused on the Matrix. About eighteen inches long, shining metal that the Sidhe might have mistaken for mithril at first glance, tapering to a sharp point at either end, the center a filigree surrounding a glowing blue crystal, it covered perhaps two-thirds of Optimus' palm.

In her long life, Diarwen had seen a few artifacts of great age and power. None had ever had this one's aura of intelligence and life—all wrapped up in the bright, curious innocence of a very young child.

While her physical body rested on the sand, her astral form rose into the air. Then Optimus' astral form reached out for the Matrix, and bright light flared from the crystal.

When her eyes cleared, Diarwen saw that she was in the desert, but it was not the same place—not, she suspected, a physical place at all. Her clothing had changed. She no longer wore the blue cotton sundress that she had chosen this morning, but rather the long robe and tabard of a Sidhe knight. Her hair hung straight, confined only by a circlet of braided pale gray ribbon interwoven with silveroak leaves: a garb she had not donned in several centuries, but in which her soul was content to be found.

She looked up to see Optimus—Optimus as he must have been before the war, before he had taken on so many battle modifications. Strength in this place was not measured by how many weapons one carried or how much armor one wore, but was found instead in one's optics: and Optimus had it in spades, as Lennox might have said.

Beside him stood a tiny, delicate white femme-sparkling, her helm and chestplates covered with a silver filigree that contained tiny glowing blue crystals. Her optics seemed large in that small face, and they were—not truly colorless, Diarwen realized suddenly, but rather all colors at once.

Diarwen dropped into a low curtsey. "My lady, Diarwen ni Gilthanel, at your service."

A bright smile spread across the tiny femme's little faceplates, and she reached out to touch Diarwen's hand. Her delighted laughter floated around them like the notes of a song on the summer breeze.

Diarwen looked up to Optimus. "She represents the Goddess in Her Maiden aspect, Optimus."

He offered his hand to them, and Diarwen helped the little femme to climb up. "We need to go a little farther this way, if I recall correctly," he said, and set off across the sands.

"This is where you were when you-"

"Yes," Optimus replied. "Sam was here also. I do not think this is truly the Well of All Sparks."

"No, this place is only a near shore of the Lands Beyond that touches on the great astral sea," Diarwen replied. "To go much farther is never to return. This has the same feel to me as the holy ground that exists within a circle, outside space and time."

Optimus stopped, and set Diarwen and the sparkling down.

The Sidhe saw movement, and then recognized the tall figures who came to join them. So long, it had been so long since she had seen them—how in the name of the Mother did she remember? She even had their names: Prima, Solus, Nova, Sigma, Vector, Alpha Trion.

Then, one of them recognized her as well, and knelt to get a better look at her. "Look, Prima, do you remember that tribe who let us stay with them while you repaired yourself after the fight with the Fallen? This is that warrior's daughter, the one who always wanted to hear another story."

The one addressed as "Prima" said, "Unexpected, but not unwelcome, Diarwen ni Gilthanel."

Diarwen curtseyed again. "Well met, my lords and ladies."

Prima held out his hand to the Matrix, and she went to him without hesitation.

"Teacher," she said, and cuddled happily into his servo.

He smiled down at her, and Diarwen knew without having to know that such a smile was the essence and distillation of love.

Then another said, "Child," held out his or her servo, and the Matrix went willingly among them, passed from servo to servo, cherished and adored as any child should be. Diarwen felt the hot tears catching at the back of her throat to see such a thing.

The last to hold her was Sigma, whose faceplates she patted, saying, "Teacher," in her tiny delicate voice.

"Well, then," Sigma said, cradling her close, "if I am to be Teacher, let us go and learn the name of a brand-new star, only as old as you are yourself."

"It's a sparkling, like me?" trailed back to the others, who smiled, Nova moving off after the little one and her teacher: and then the laser-like focus of those who had remained with him fastened on Optimus.

Prima opened the discussion by saying to Optimus, "You have questions."

"Yes, many of them. Beginning with precisely who that sparkling is."

"That sparkling is the Matrix, but she also is the All-Spark. You've surmised what happened when the boy had to destroy the All-Spark's old form?"

Optimus said, "The boy, Sam Witwicky, became the vessel for its energy. We learned that only in retrospect, though. But when he used the Matrix to bring me back, the All-Spark's energy melded with that of the Matrix. And sparked...her?"

"Yes. The All-Spark is a tool, not a sentient being. It was meant to have the guidance of the ruling Prime, and the priesthood. Without that guidance, it sparks life at random, whenever it finds a vessel. That had tragic consequences, as the All-Spark has no means by which to judge the suitability of a particular vessel. The Matrix has the sentience to control it...or rather, she will, once she has reached a greater level of maturity. We have locked away most of her abilities until she exhibits some wisdom in other areas, and we believe this is consistent enough to guarantee that she will apply it to sparking life. For the past two years, we've kept her concealed and in stasis, teaching her only when you were in recharge."

"Why? Because I didn't know of her presence, she was put in dangerous situations."

"There was no alternative to that; had you known of her presence, you could not have done what needed to be done. As well, she will allow no other save her Chosen to carry her, a legacy from the spark who inhabited her when she Chose me. We meant to keep her hidden for some time yet. She was not intended to communicate with you until she was older. Not for any fault of your own, but because there is so much that no child should see."

"The war, the genocide, the destruction of Cybertron."

"Yes. I hoped to wait until she was more mature, until there was less chance that fear would turn her dark. But that was not the will of Primus. Now, she is solidly rooted in the material world, and we must leave raising her to you, Optimus. One day, once she is fully grown, she will be able to work through her bearer—you, and those to follow you—to once again call newsparks from the Well."

"How is that supposed to happen?"

Prima smiled. "I have no idea. They will be your discoveries to make."

Optimus' field became the hard, silvery sheet that Diarwen was used to seeing when two choices lay before him, and one was less than honorable. "She is a sparkling, a living creature, and she will never again be used as a weapon. I will protect and defend her as the sparkling she truly is."

"That is only right," Prima agreed. "Remember that there is another whom she has found worthy."

"Yes. I wonder if a frame of her own might not be a good idea, for her own safety," Optimus said.

Prima tilted his helm in thought, then said, "The previous Matrix never wanted one. What we called independence, it called isolation. This one has the astral form that you see, but I would hesitate to force a new frame on her."

Optimus said, "She will make her own choices in that regard when the time comes," he said.

Prima nodded his agreement, then said, "I don't believe that Diarwen's presence here is an accident." He turned to the Sidhe. "Your destiny lies along this path. I give her into your keeping as well as Optimus'."

Diarwen was silent in thought for a moment, before she looked up to Prima, silver eyes solemn. "She will be a sparkling for a very long time, is that not so?"

"Yes."

The Sidhe let out a long breath, phrasing her answer carefully. "I will walk that path with her so long as my fate allows, teach her and protect her to the best of my ability."

Pleased with her answer, Prima said, his voice thoughtful, "Once I turned down the protection of your queen, and often through the vorns that have followed, I have wondered if that was a mistake. When Cybertron fell into ruins, when our people died by the millions...I wondered, then, whether had I accepted the assistance of the Daoine Sidhe, I might have spared my people so much suffering. I shall not make that mistake again. On the Matrix' behalf, I accept your protection, Lady Diarwen."

Diarwen felt her heart pound as she replied, "I have never forgotten, and never shall forget, that you decided as you did to spare my people involvement in your conflict, my lord. By the reckoning of my kind, you and your comrades acted as true kings and queens, sacrificing yourselves for the good of the people. What followed was the tragic result of many wrong choices made by many people—some deliberately wrong, some the failure of insight or courage—but still, their choices to make."

Optimus said, "Prima, the war and all it encompassed happened on my watch, not yours."

Prima replied, "Sentinel orchestrated much of that, and Ultra Magnus was your superior through most of it. There's more than enough blame to go around for all of us."

Solus put a servo on each of their shoulders, and said gently, "There's nothing to be gained now by parceling out that blame. You both did your best. No one could have done more, knowing what you knew. This is the time to rebuild, so that all those who wait in the Well can have the opportunity to be reborn as Cybertronians, if that's their destiny, and continue their journeys."

Prima covered her servo with his own.

Optimus said, "Thank you, Solus Prime."

She nodded, a smile drifting across her faceplates.

Optimus asked Prima, "Did you intend for me to be unable to access the copies of your memories that she carries?"

"No, that is a result of her reformat. They can be unlocked; do you wish access to them immediately?"

Optimus said, "If there's no harm to her to leave things as they are, then it would be better to wait, unless you know of a way for me to access the files without forcing her to view them also."

Prima said, "I don't believe there is one. In those early days, we were _all_ purpose-built mecha, and the purpose of the Matrix was to guard those memories. The reason for that was that the Quintessons routinely reprogrammed captured rebels. It was something of which we all lived in fear. I know of no one who did not leave at least two copies of an up-to-date backup with trusted friends, just in case. We Primes kept backups in a vault under what later became the Great Temple, but if one of us had been captured and was subsequently rescued, we wanted a faster way to restore the mech or femme. In time, of course, the Matrix proved to have far greater capabilities, but safeguarding and controlling our memories still remains her primary instruction set."

"While those memories would be useful, their retrieval is of less urgency than the sparkling's well-being." Once they had reached that agreement, the conversation lapsed.

Nova and Sigma returned with the Matrix. Like any sparkling, she held up her arms for Optimus to carry her, settling against his chest plates when he did so.

"Why can't I have a designation?" she asked. "Everybot else has one but me. Was I bad?"

"No, absolutely not," Optimus told her firmly, afraid that she remembered on some level that the former Megatronus Prime, the Fallen, had been stripped of his designation as part of the punishment for his betrayal. "Sweetspark, you were so quiet that until you blasted that monster, I didn't even know you were there, so I couldn't know that you needed a designation. Do you have one in mind?"

She shook her helm. "I'm not really the Matrix, you know. Sometimes I can sort of feel it, but it isn't me. I'm not the All-Spark either, but it's here. I don't know what I am but I hope I didn't do anything bad to either one of them."

Prima reached out to stroke the back of her helm with one digit. "The Matrix is my friend. It can't be here right now, Little One, but I promise you, it's very proud of you. And the All-Spark—some bad people were going to use it for the wrong things, so it had to change forms and hide, but it hid from them and not from you. You weren't bad at all. In fact, you've done a very good job of helping it hide. And someday, when you're older, you'll be able to help the All-Spark call new sparks from the Well, which is a very important thing to do."

Optimus said, "I have an idea for a designation that you might like, but first let's make sure you understand why I think so. The English word 'Matrix' comes from a word that means 'Parent,' and the All-Spark was the parent of most Cybertronians. Do you know what a parent is?"

She turned her helm sideways, in the way of all puzzled sparklings. "The one who had their charge sparked," she replied.

"Yes, but we also use that glyph as part of an identity-string for the All-Spark sometimes. Can you tell me why that is?"

"Because the All-Spark called sparks from the Well to new frames?"

"Yes, that's right. Keep that in memory for a moment. Now, you know the humans never had an All-Spark the way we did."

"Then how do humans get sparks for their sparklings?"

"Well, they have several different ideas about that, and maybe there are lots of different ways. But usually they say their gods do it for them. And many of them call their gods words in their languages that all mean "Parent." That glyph, _Parent_, would be a good start for a translation."

"Oh!"

"Some of them see their planet as a goddess that they call Mother Earth, or in one of their languages, Gaia. Now, for a while, all of those new sparks that Prima told you about a little while ago, will come to Earth."

She thought about that, then asked every sparkling's favorite question: "Why?"

"Because we needed a place to live, and Gaia let us live with Her. That's why I thought maybe you would like to be designated Gaia, in honor of Mother Earth."

She nodded shyly. "Yes. Yes, I would."

Prima said, "There's another thing. When you're in the real world, you have your other form. But when you're here, you look like this. Which do you like better?"

"I don't know," the sparkling said, looking confused. "When will I be able to transform to a bot?"

"Not for a while yet," Solus told her gently. "Remember your sand form? That is your alt form. And it's a very complicated one, because your spark has to go into a subspace pocket—along with enough common sense so that you can get out again. Otherwise, you'd be stuck in there!"

Gaia giggled.

"There are mecha with more than two forms. But they have to wait until they have enough memory to store another alt form—that's a very big file—as well as enough processor ability to run a much more complicated transformation sequence. When you're old enough, though, you could have a form like this as another alt if you wished."

She nodded. "I'll wait then. If I can turn into sand _whenever_ I want to, no bad people can take me away again." She hunched down in Optimus' hand, curling up into a little ball, a sparkling's defensive pose.

He realized what had scared her, and clutched her to his spark. "You were aware then—? Sweetspark, you used up all your energy to bring me back, and you needed to recharge. You _couldn't_ have transformed then. It wasn't your fault."

"But he almost made me—"

Prima said, "The Fallen? Gaia, that was _his _fault for doing something that he knew was wrong, and his fault for making you help him do it. It was partly our fault for asking the first Matrix to be the key to the Solar Harvester in the first place, because we failed to think about someone doing that when your power levels were so low that you couldn't transform. But none of that was _your_ fault. It was all his, and ours."

She looked from Prima to Optimus, then at the other Primes, innocent optics seeking reassurance and knowledge. "But isn't that why you're not going to be my teachers any more?"

"Absolutely not, sweetspark," Solus told her. "It's time for you to go into the World of Life and live, become who you are. Optimus and Diarwen will be your teachers, and they will take good care of you. We will still be here, watching over you, just as we always have been. But we have had our adventures already. Now, it is time for yours to begin."

Their forms began to shimmer. Optimus said hastily, "I thank you for this meeting, O Primes," as the desert faded to black around the three travelers, and they returned to their bodies.

There was an instant of disorientation, as unpleasant as not knowing which way was up, until Optimus determined that only a few seconds had passed on Earth. "Diarwen? Are you well?"

She blinked and focused. "I believe so. Gaia?"

He held out his servo for her. Back in her Matrix form, she floated obediently to his palm plate. ::Sleepy,:: she complained.

He put her back inside his chest plates and felt her dock securely, before she settled into the dreamless state of deep, restorative sleep.

"She went very quickly into recharge," he said to Diarwen.

"From what I have observed of the Trine, sparklings and children have at least one thing in common. They have two speeds: stop and _go."_

"They have more than that in common. Sparklings need to experience the world in order to develop normally, and so does she. Apparently, until now, she has been receiving that intellectual stimulation from her 'teachers,' while I was in recharge. I'm not sure how I can do that for her, as long as Gaia is in her Matrix form. However, I understand her fear of giving up her sand-form alt for a form like our root modes and losing her primary means to control access to her abilities."

Diarwen nodded. "How does she experience her environment in those forms?"

Optimus unsubspaced and gave her a bottle of water; she twisted off the cap and drank as he continued. "She has few of our usual sensors in Matrix form, as near as I can tell only pressure and temperature detectors. Sparks can sense energy fields interacting with their own, however, so she is aware of the people around her. In her sand form, with her spark in a subspace pocket, she should have no ordinary senses at all—but somehow she knows when to come out. As long as she is docked with me, it should be possible for her to perceive all that I do—which comes with its own set of problems. Aside from the danger, I don't want to expose her to a battlefield at her age—but I may have no choice."

"Or, it may be years before the remaining Decepticons feel bold enough to try their luck against you once more."

Optimus sat down in a patch of sunlight that found its way between the canyon's high walls. "May Primus hear you," he said. "But I doubt we are that fortunate. Flatline has always been motivated by greed. I doubt that he has the patience to find a sunny spot for an energon cube and lie low. He also has that warper with him. Making use of that ability, I am sure, will prove too great a temptation."

"Flatline and the warper hardly seem threats on the level of Blitzwing and Lugnut."

"They are not. I wouldn't be surprised if they joined forces, though. Blitzwing and Lugnut are powerful fighters. It would be logical for weaker 'Cons to ally with them if they can," Optimus said. "With Soundwave out there somewhere, it is too much to hope for that they will not be in contact with one another. The sole ray of sunshine in all these gloomy clouds of possibility is that we're now up against a gang rather than an army."

Diarwen sat down beside him, but in his shadow. "Optimus, do you see any chance of capturing that warper? He makes the others much more dangerous than they would be without him. Beyond that...if you are right that he is but a youngling..."

"I hope that it will be possible, but you know as well as I do, there are few younglings in war. Bumblebee should still be a youngling."

"He lived because he is not," Diarwen pointed out solemnly.

"Yes."

She stood carefully, knowing that she might be light-headed so soon after returning from astral travel. Optimus curled his servo around her, so that she could catch herself if she started to fall. "Now that we are at peace, may the Gods grant Gaia time to be a sparkling."

Optimus nodded. "We can only pray that it be so." He took a last look around the canyon, and said regretfully, "I suppose we must be getting back."

"Yes, I suppose we must. I have no desire to go back into those metal buildings so soon, but Dr. Parker has decreed that I have a minder when I am outside. Do you know if the sparklings are outside?" She dusted off the sand which had collected on her skirt and in her sandals.

He got on the radio and checked. "Barricade and Arcee have them at Buzzard Rock."

"Could you leave me there with them? That should meet the requirements of my parole."

He laughed, no more comfortable enabling the shepherding than she was being subjected to it. "Of course."

End Chapter 8


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Disclaimers in Chapter 1

The next Saturday, Sam Witwicky woke up early, while Carly was still sound asleep. He slipped out of bed without waking her, and put on coffee for her before he went out for his morning run. It had been hard to get into the habit of running before dawn, but if he was going to be training with the NEST team he needed to be in better than just "good shape" to keep up. He found that a run was a good start. On days they were on the shooting range, he alternated fencing practice with a visit to the weight room. Other days, they sparred or ran the obstacle course. This was an obstacle course day, so he planned his run to end up there in time enough to get some water before they started.

He had been an active enough kid to stay wiry, but now that he put an effort into working out, it showed. Carly appreciated the results, too.

Sam was grateful that he no longer finished the obstacle course dead last _every single time_, though it still scared him shitless when he had to jump off the climbing wall, or when there was live fire over the barbed wire. Will had told him he wouldn't be so scared of the wall once he gained more confidence in his ability to roll safely out of a landing, something that came only with experience. And anyone who wasn't scared of live fire was a damn idiot, according to Lennox, but the only way you overcame the natural inclination to duck and cover instead of advancing under fire was to do it.

Sam knew he was getting better: he didn't flinch and jump as much as he used to. The few seconds he saved thereby could save his life or someone else's. In Chicago he hadn't been the kid they needed to look out for any more, he had been one of the team, and now he trained like it, either here or at the Washington NEST base, to make the whole team better.

Sam also thought it was pretty damn cool that Flareup was doing the course with them, and finished third behind Lennox and Epps. Having a monoped form with a wheel, she was at a disadvantage compared to the humans when it came to the climbing wall. Getting over it using only her arms took a lot of grit and determination, something the NEST soldiers appreciated enough not to cut her any slack for the seconds it cost her.

By the time they finished, all of them were grateful for the chance to sluice off the grit and cool down under a water hose. Will took the hose and aimed it at his sister-in-law's back, where the sand got into transformation seams and created a possibly hazardous nuisance if it wasn't removed. He got a long drink off the hose before he passed it on, then said, "Hey, Sam, you just passed all your preliminaries. Want to learn to jump?"

"_You_ want to tell my pregnant girlfriend I'm gonna jump out of an airplane?" he replied. "I'm not that stupid."

Will, who had already had his paratrooper's badge before he and Sarah got married, scratched his chin. "Yeah, I see your point. That should probably wait. But you'll need to get jump-certified before you can learn to use a squirrel suit."

"I understand," Sam replied. In spite of the scare the climbing wall gave him, learning to use a wing suit, or squirrel suit, was something he wanted to do, badly, but right now Carly came first. "We're gonna visit my parents today."

Will tossed him his boonie hat, and he put it on over wet hair, trying to keep cool a little bit longer. Will said, "Really? Going to break the news today?"

"Yeah, then I'm taking them all out to Giordano's to celebrate. And officially pop the question."

Will grinned. So that was the reason for Sam's nervousness. "Good luck—not that I think you need it. And congratulations."

Epps slapped him on the back, and a lot of the other guys gathered round, doing the same and murmuring, "Congrats, Wicky."

Family was important to them, but often their relationships suffered from the pressure their missions subjected them to, and the long separations those missions imposed. Like any good commander, Lennox made sure his kids were there for each other through the ups and downs, and the inevitable splits.

It had been a big surprise when things hadn't worked out between Mikaela and Sam, though in retrospect it shouldn't have been. Mikaela had been a lot more mature than Sam. Walking away had been the right thing for both of them to do, and so had been finishing her education elsewhere.

Because the engineering student was still associated with NEST, information about her came across Will's desk, and he knew she had only a couple more classes to go before she finished her bachelor's degree this summer. Lennox also knew that Kaela had stayed close to Ratchet and later to Wheeljack, and took their advice when choosing classes. She would be rejoining Ratchet's team in September.

He wondered sometimes how that would go over with Sam and Carly, but he figured they'd work it out. Sam's and Mikaela's breakup had been the amicable but final type that didn't ordinarily cause trouble later.

Flareup and Sam split off from the group at the turnoff to base housing. Sam thanked her for the ride when she stopped in front of his building, watched her speed off toward the hangars, then jogged inside.

By then, Carly was up, and had been so long enough to fry up a traditional English breakfast. Sam was ravenous enough after his training session to load up his plate and dig in. Carly tried to kiss him, but he playfully fended her off. "Better let me get a shower first—all I did was cool off with a hose."

She teasingly held her nose and sat down across the table. She ate a little of everything, but only a little. Morning sickness had not been a problem so far today and she wanted to keep it that way. "Sam, are you sure your parents won't be angry?"

"With my mom and dad, you can never be a hundred percent sure of anything, that's just the Witwickys. But even if they do yell at us at first, they'll be thrilled. Grandbaby."

"You're so lucky to have your parents."

He scooped beans onto toast. "Still no answer from your folks?"

"My email bounced," she said. "They killfiled me."

"They're assholes. I'm sorry to say that about your parents, but it's true. They're assholes and you're too good for them." Sam was glad the Spencers lived on the other side of the ocean, because he didn't think it would help things if he got arrested for kicking his future in-laws' skidplates—no matter how much it was deserved.

"It's OK, Sam, I figured out a long time ago that I don't need them."

"You're right that you don't need 'em, but it isn't OK. They're your parents. They're supposed to be there for you no matter what, not bail as soon as things get a little difficult." Saying that, Sam realized all over again how lucky he was to have his parents. They might be a little wild and crazy, but when things got hairy they hadn't bailed, they held on tighter.

Carly smiled at him and said, "Let's just forget about them for now, shall we? I'm excited about telling Ron and Judy, and I'd rather think about that."

"Sure thing, baby. More tea?"

"Thanks," she said, passing him the cup and saucer.

Sam hurriedly showered, and grabbed a button-down shirt and a pair of khakis rather than his usual off-duty uniform of jeans and a tee. Giordano's was a family restaurant, not fancy, but he didn't want to propose to his lady while looking like a hobo. He got the ring box out of his shaving kit and stuffed it as far down in his pants pocket as he could.

He texted Bee, and let the yellow bot know they were ready to leave. He had told his Guardian about his plans for the day, and Bee had already traded shifts with Mirage to have the time off.

Ordinarily it was a twenty minute drive from the base to Tranquility, but it turned out to be quite a bit less than twenty minutes today, as they were on a nice safe straightaway through the desert with nothing on Bee's sensors closer than a mile.

The yellow bot slowed down to the speed limit when they neared the outskirts of Sam's home town. They passed the high school, the Dairy Queen, Bolivia's Used Cars where Sam and Bumblebee first met, then his maternal grandparents' house. Bee honked the horn and Sam and Carly waved at his granddad, who was out walking the three corgis which infested their home.

Bee rounded the corner onto Desertview. There was the board fence which had viciously broken Sam's arm when he tried to scale it at the age of nine. Or that had been his opinion at the time, anyway.

Trent DeMarco, his high school nemesis, was home from work—his red tee shirt had the emblem of the Tranquility Fire Department on it. Sam tapped the horn, something about which he and Bumblebee had both lost all self-consciousness a long time ago, and Trent waved and grinned, high school nonsense forgotten.

They pulled up in front of the Witwicky place as they had a zillion times before, and found Judy sitting on the couch watching TV. She jumped up to let them in. She yelled for Ron, and the four of them gathered around the kitchen table.

Ron asked, "What's going on?"

"Well, we need to talk to you. Mom, Dad, there's a reason why Carly's going to be living here in Nevada instead of in DC, even though I'll be there at least as much as here. It's safer for her, but more than that, I wanted her close to you. Carly's pregnant."

Ron spewed coffee, and Judy let out a squeal that made the dogs howl. She nearly tripped running around the table to hug them both.

Ron turned bright red, and said in his force-of-nature quiet voice, the one you never, ever said "No" to, "Sam, I want to speak with you in the dining room. _Right now."_

Sam squeezed Carly's hand, got up, his heart pounding in his chest, and followed his father. Once the door into the kitchen had flapped shut behind Sam, Ron did a one-eighty and almost drove a thick forefinger through his offspring's sternum.

"No matter what you feel about that girl, no matter what you think of her, you are going to marry her. Do you understand me? You created a life, Sam, and you knew how to avoid that. So you're ready to take responsibility, whether you know it or not. That's my grandkid, and you're going to do the right thing by him, or her, and his, or her, mother."

Sam stood up straight without even thinking about it and looked his dad dead in the eye. He had been dealing with his father long enough to know that any answer which began with the word "But" would result in a lava-flow of words. And so he said, "Yes, sir, I am," and dug into his pants pocket until his fingers folded around the ring box, pulled it out, and popped it at his father.

Who, to give him credit, looked at it, looked at Sam, swallowed his bile, and said, "Good for you, son. Let's go rejoin the ladies."

Sam understood that he had just been initiated into the Clan of Married Guys, grinned, and followed his father into the kitchen.

They got there just in time to hear Judy, in a bright voice that told them she and Carly had heard every word Ron said, ask Carly, "How far along are you?"

Carly said, "The doctor said nine weeks, but I think actually it's more like eight."

Ron asked, "Does this job have insurance?"

Sam said, "Yeah, what, it's the government, of course I have benefits."

"'Cause you're gonna be in and out of the doctor's office every time you turn around, and that isn't cheap. Plus you're gonna need all kinds of stuff for the baby."

"I got it covered, Dad. Don't worry."

"I gotta worry, you're the one who got your girlfriend pregnant."

Judy reached around Sam to smack her husband on the arm. "Ron, we're going to be _grandparents!"_

The older Witwicky male shook his head, but couldn't help the slow grin that spread across his face. "Yeah." Ron thought about all the times Sam had gone out and almost hadn't come back, and abruptly pulled his son close in a rough bear hug. "You take good care of that girl, you got me? And yourself too, dammit. Make us proud."

Sam nodded. "I will, Dad. That's my job—protecting her, and you and Mom, and everybody else out there. I'm gonna be good at it."

"I know you are, boy."

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Giordano's was fairly busy on a Saturday, but Sam knew the manager and had called ahead to let him know he intended to propose to Carly. As a result, a good table opened up just as they walked in. That table was clearly visible through a large window from the parking lot outside.

Three unoccupied waitresses whispered excitedly to each other when Carly walked by, but she assumed they had her confused with someone else, or that it was a coincidence and had nothing to do with her at all. Once they were seated at the table, their server brought big family-sized bowls of salad and bread sticks.

Through the salad and the pasta, they talked about their apartment on base, and what it was going to take to turn the extra bedroom into a nursery. Then, just as they were getting ready to order dessert, Sam got up casually then down on one knee beside Carly. She gasped and put her hands over her mouth as she realized what was happening, and people at the nearby tables caught on as well.

"Carly Spencer, you are my lady, and my love, and I can't imagine going through my life without you. Will you marry me?"

Her eyes lit up with joy and she screamed, _"Yes!"_

The whole place burst into applause, and the restaurant owner as well as several customers with cell phones took pictures as Sam put the ring on Carly's finger and kissed her.

The restaurant staff paraded a dessert full of chocolate and strawberries to the table, then, led by a violinist, sang "O Sole Mio." Judy cried when she and Ron were the first to congratulate the happy couple.

Bee let out a loud horn blast, drawing a lot of attention—but for once, he didn't care. And the people in the parking lot eventually shrugged and moved on.

No one spared a moment's thought for the Spencers.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Getting married in Nevada is not complicated. Sam brought his birth certificate and driver's license to the courthouse, Carly her green card, birth certificate, passport, driver's license, and several reams of what proved to be unnecessary paper; when all these had been inspected and scanned in, they were issued a marriage license.

After that, the happy couple had to find a venue. They went back to the Witwicky house to talk about that. Sam and Carly sat on Bee's hood, while Ron and Judy perched on a low wall next to the driveway.

Ron thought they should go someplace with an Elvis impersonator. Judy was all for a romantic wedding chapel with lots of lace and tons of flowers.

Sam and Carly looked at each other, then Judy and Ron. Sam said diplomatically, "I think we should get married on base, so all our friends can be there. We can arrange for people to escort everybody from Tranquility, can't we, Bumblebee?"

Bee playfully cranked up his radio and started playing "I Can't Help Falling In Love With You."

Ron enthused, "See! That's two votes for Elvis! Hey, there's this one Elvis wedding chapel that's a drive-through. The bots could be there too."

Carly protested, laughing, "Ron, Bee! Oh, my God! _No!_ I am not having an Elvis wedding!"

Judy said, "On base would work. You need permission from Colonel Lennox, but you can get one of the chaplains to perform the ceremony."

Predictably, Ron said, "Hey, that'll save you a ton of money," and began to wonder how he could smuggle an Elvis impersonator onto the base.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Diarwen shrugged on her BDU shirt as she slid off the exam table. "Well, you wanted to measure my progress. May I ask whether there has been any?"

Parker said, "You can always ask about your medical records, Diarwen, they belong to you, not to anyone else. I can only speak to the physical aspects of your recovery, but the news there is good. Your electrolyte levels are back within the normal range, which means you no longer need to be concerned about the possible cardiac complications of a potassium imbalance. Your kidneys are fine, also. Just to be on the safe side, I'd like you to continue to watch your fluid intake and avoid getting overheated. I'm clearing you for light duty, and if you don't have any more problems, you should be off the sick list in a week."

"Just to make certain—I no longer need to have the royal retinue following me about from dawn until dusk?"

Parker gave her a rueful grin. "No, you do not—but if you do decide to go out in the desert alone, please make sure someone knows when to expect you back. It would be better if you did have someone with you. Another episode of heat exhaustion could turn into heat stroke."

"I shall be careful."

"Is there any sign of your magic returning?"

Diarwen bowed her head. "Not as of yet, no spontaneous magic. I haven't tried anything deliberate. Sidhe healers usually had a patient wait an entire moon cycle before testing the extent of magical injury...but there ordinarily are signs of returning ability before that. If nothing at all has returned in a month...I will have to assume my disability is long term, if not permanent."

"Is there anything that I can do to help?"

"I cannot think of anything. There would be little, at this point, that even a Sidhe healer could do. Now, it is simply a matter of 'wait and see.'"

Parker nodded, but offered no easy platitudes or false reassurances—for which Diarwen was grateful. What was, was; the Sidhe warrior would make the best of it.

A heartrending screech and a loud crash from the bot side of medbay sent both of them running to find out what was happening. Jolt was sitting on the floor, servo over his optic, with energon trickling down his wrist and faceplates. Skysong was near her berth, huddled in a pile, fields very weak and showing nothing but a cold gray pain that was pure despair.

Diarwen raced to Skysong and pulled the little one into her lap, reaching out to her with everything she had. She shouted to Parker, "Jolt will keep! Get Optimus, _quickly!"_

Parker ran. Diarwen asked, "Jolt? What happened?"

"I was checking on her, and I noticed that she had her restraints off. When I tried to replace them, she clawed me, then she tried to fly," he reported.

Optimus rushed in, carrying Parker. "What happened?"

"She wishes to offline," Diarwen said. "She tried to fly, and fell. I cannot communicate with her, other than the most basic emotions."

"Seekers _need_ to fly. Grounded ones never live long, not without some hope of a change in their situation." He knelt beside them, taking them both in his servos, then reached out to the distraught sparkling with a gently offered private link. Skysong's fields latched onto his, and she sent wordless bursts of desperation that she did not have the vocabulary to explain. Because she couldn't understand the words, he sent her an image of a youngling Seeker, and the simplest glyph for "grow." She couldn't understand; the idea of growing into another frame was too complicated to explain in the language set that she had. She huddled in his palm, a tiny bundle of misery.

Parker got Jolt to lie back so she could cut off the energon to his shattered optic, and then had him summon Ratchet.

The trine bond overwhelmed Skimmer and Stormy with their sister's distress. They raced a few feet above the surface across the camp, which left both Barricade and Sunstreaker behind them, laboring through the hot air. Once at med bay, they battered the door, screeching madly, until Sunny caught up and opened it.

In terror for their sister, they dive-bombed Prime, hissing like overheated teakettles, wings shaking in a threat display.

Prime refrained from laughing at them, though the impulse trembled in his spark. He held out his other servo, and sent a strong imperative for them to calm down. When they were calm enough not to endanger her with rough play, he let them near Skysong.

They were having no part of "near." They maglocked to either side of her from a distance between his palms too great to jump, not caring in the slightest if Diarwen had to leap back out of the way or Optimus, spark in his mouth, had to catch _her._ No, they held tight to their sister and kept those little wings high in challenge, trine-bond fully open as they poured through it all their desperate love for their sister, their will for her to stay with them.

The Sidhe was not laughing as she gathered all three of them in. The adult mecha had seen only the sparklings' bravado. In the mechling's auras, Diarwen had seen the tiny ones' mortal fear for their sister, fear that they attached to Prime when they found him hovering over Skysong. If the threat had been real, they would not have abandoned her, even against such impossible odds. They were too small to understand concepts like courage and sacrifice and honor. But family? Family they understood. Oh, yes.

Barricade and Ratchet got there at about the same time, and both shouting, "What the frag?" in near-unison. Jolt's broken optic was mute testimony to half the story. The jagged edges of the metal restraints—designed to keep adult mecha from harming themselves, not to contain sparklings—and the deep scores on Skysong's beak and talons told the rest.

Optimus sent to the healer, ::Can you give her a language upgrade so that we can tell her she will be able to fly in her youngling frame?::

::That's a long time for a flightless seeker to hold on, Prime,:: Ratchet said. ::That's why I've been keeping her sedated while we tried to think of something. I don't know how she woke up.::

::What about an early upgrade?::

During the war, that had been done, because sparklings were so very fragile, and younglings had a better chance of surviving the harsh wartime conditions. The seekerlings, however, were not even three human years old.

Ratchet said, ::She doesn't have the processor ability to control a youngling frame yet. The best solution would be a reformat into a new sparkling frame, but we don't have the ability to build one here. In two years, she should be advanced enough to handle an upgrade to a youngling frame, if I simplify it as much as possible. But she doesn't have the perspective to understand how short a time that is—two years is literally almost an entire lifetime for her.::

::Is keeping her sedated for two years the only option we have?::

::It isn't an option at all. Her processor will only upgrade itself as she keeps trying to use more capacity than she has.:: Ratchet sent a burst of frustration. ::I'll streamline a language upgrade to give her the vocabulary to talk about this.::

::Give her glyphs for what she's feeling, Ratchet, she needs to be able to express all that fear and anger so that she doesn't turn it back on herself. And every glyph for hope that you can find in the lexicon.::

For now, Ratchet had no choice other than sedate her, because her emotional state alone was dangerous in her condition.

Knowing that she could throw off the sedative, Wheeljack arranged a cage around the berth, with holoscreens for walls and ceiling onto which he projected camera images from outside the Quonset hut. He ran audio as well, to immerse her in the illusion of being outdoors. The only side that wasn't real time was the one that would have looked out into the parking lot. He substituted the view of a nearby cliff face there, rather than have her see trucks like the one she had hit.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Sunstreaker got out of the way as soon as Ratchet had the medbay under control again. Optimus and Diarwen stayed until Optimus had to go back to his duties; when he left, Diarwen went outside for a while. Barricade and the mechlings got into the caged berth with Skysong, keeping her company—from now on, she would never be left without someone specifically assigned to sit with her, in addition to whoever happened to be on duty in the medbay.

Ratchet replaced Jolt's optic. The healer-in-training said, "I'm sorry. It was my fault she tried to fly off the berth."

"She surprised you by waking up when she shouldn't have, and then she got you good. You would have taken for granted that a combat mech might come up fighting like that, but a sparkling? It could have happened to anyone."

"Not you," Jolt said.

"There's no shortcut to experience. And not only medical experience, either. I've had a few more people take a swipe at my face than you have."

"Ow!"

"Hold still, frag it!"

That wasn't easy when someone was connecting leads to his optic, but Jolt did so. Calibrating the lenses so that he wasn't seeing double took another little while. Ratchet's servo deep in his optical socket, Jolt said, "Diarwen probably saved Skysong's life again today. She was ready to offline when she realized she couldn't fly."

Ratchet confined himself to making a non-committal noise—but his processor threw up the thought that Barricade and the other former 'Cons were all making an effort to fit in. No matter what they had done in wartime (and that probably, at least in some cases, included killing a bot who was in recharge), they were all starting over.

The thing was, Optimus, Ironhide and Chromia hadn't adopted the 'Cons, as they had Diarwen. They had no … distance … from her personality, and couldn't see her as the terrible threat she truly was. True, she behaved in ways no real threat would: she was responsible for saving Skysong. In both instances she had done so, his own skills were too little, too late, massive though they were. So was he jealous?

Back burner. Deal with it later. Don't discount the possibility.

His programming as a medic, particularly the major subroutines to heal and defend, brought him up short at the concept of a human, roughly, able to kill twenty sleeping persons, allowed and encouraged to become as close to his Prime as she had.

Logic told him she was a good person; experience countered that good people could do horrible things under the right set of conditions.

And he had no fraggin' _idea_ what she considered the right set of conditions. None at all.

It bothered him. He went the medic's tried-and-true course of action, which was to do no harm and wait for more data.

End Chapter 9


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Disclaimers in Chapter 1

Lennox transmitted the day's reports to Colonel Morshower and stood up from his chair, stretching until his back popped. It was that last fight with Starscream rather than age catching up with him - wasn't it? It had to be - but too much time in an office chair had started to give him a backache.

Optimus' audials caught the tell-tale _crack. _"Are you all right?"

"Ah, yeah, it's nothing. Whoever thought it would be a good idea for me to fly a desk—!"

"I see." And he did. "I am sure somewhere on base, datapads have a hidden nursery where they create hordes of tiny datapad-lings. Nothing else explains their limitless numbers."

"Hah. Yeah, that's gotta be it. Heard there was a crisis in medbay today," Will said.

"Yes. Skysong woke up from sedation unexpectedly, clawed Jolt's optic out, attempted to fly, and crashed. No sparkling should ever know such despair."

Sam rotated his chair to look at the two of them. "Bee told me about grounded seekers. Isn't there anything we can do?"

Optimus said, "There has to be something, but I confess that I have no idea what it would be. The thing, Sam, is that permanent disability, to the point of hopelessness, is rare in our species. No one wants to contemplate reformat, but if an injury is such that a new frame is the lesser evil, the option exists to build one. However, right now, we cannot build Skysong a new sparkling frame. We do not have the materials or the tools, and only Wheeljack has the skill set. In general, we have few examples of others who have made new lives after such a disability. I find myself drawing upon English in an attempt to comfort and reassure her, using a complex vocabulary which I cannot communicate to a sparkling."

Lennox said, "We _do_ have the experience. I might have an idea. Let me talk to Doc Parker and make a few phone calls."

Among the casualties from Chicago were a few troops who had survived, but were injured too badly to return to their former duties. He kept in touch with them routinely to make sure they were getting all the help they needed from the VA—and to raise unholy hell if they weren't.

Carlos DeSantos was recovering from third degree burns, and had been blinded. He probably wouldn't get out of the hospital for a year or more, what with all the skin grafts and everything. Derek Poynter had a head injury—some days he could carry on a perfectly normal conversation, and others, the personality changes were enough to scare the crap out of his mother and sister.

Tech Sgt. Charles "Chip" Chase was paralyzed from the mid-chest down. The information systems specialist had been injured in NEST's conflict with Shockwave and four other 'Cons. He'd had to relearn to breathe, for crying out loud. But sitting around watching daytime TV and feeling sorry for himself had never been Chip's style. He had been involved with an experimental program in which a few wounded vets were designing a neuro-interface control for powered wheelchairs, using conductive pads above the damage to the spinal cord to pick up signals that once would have controlled walking, and using them to control the chair. They hoped it would eliminate the need to keep one hand—usually the patient's dominant hand, at that—on a joystick at all times, and make control of the chair as effortless as walking from point A to point B.

Chip being Chip, however, in their last phone call he had admitted to recently getting into some hot water with his nurses for souping up his chair so it would go twenty miles an hour, and racing it up and down the hospital corridors. Just to test the controls, of course.

That hospital was rapidly going to turn into a prison for Chip. The last thing he needed was to have people holding him back for his own good.

The thing was, Chip hadn't healed enough to be out of the hospital yet.

Will figured that getting Ratchet and Wheeljack involved in two projects would be no bad thing: getting Skysong airborne again, and getting Chip not just a marvelous wheelchair, but back on his feet entirely. That last could help a lot of people. And it wouldn't hurt a damn thing to have Skysong see Chip pulling some of his crazy stunts. In this case, someone usually considered a bad influence (a definition Will knew would make Chip grin) on a young person could turn out to be a lifesaving one.

After cornering Dr. Parker and making sure they could provide the care that Chip needed, he gave the Tech Sgt. a call as he walked back over to Ops.

It sounded like World War III was going on when Chip answered the phone. "Hey, guys, turn that down some! Sorry, Colonel, the guys are playing video games."

"No problem. How ya doin', Sarge?" He held the phone to his ear as he climbed the stairs to the platform.

"Great. We got one of the guys' little sister to test out the control system, she was fine with it. I think we're really onto something."

"Are you at a point where you have to be right there to keep working on the project?"

"Uh, well, no, I guess not. We can do a lot of it online, since my contribution's mostly going to be programming now."

Will eschewed the hated office chair to sit on the corner of his desk. "How would you like to come out to Mission City?"

"Mission City? You mean I can stay in? How?"

"I don't know about that, but we can sure hire you as a civilian contractor. Look, I don't want to lose your skills, and besides that, if you can get Wheeljack and Ratchet involved in your project, who knows what the three of you could come up with?"

"Hell, yes, when do I ship out?"

"As soon as I can put the paperwork through. The CMO says she can probably handle everything fine, so there shouldn't be a medical hangup. What we need from you is to clear records release to her, ASAP."

"Holy shit! I'll get that done today! They've had me lookin' at brochures from assisted living places. I can't believe this. Thank you, Colonel!"

"No problem, Sarge, it'll be great to have you back."

Lennox was still grinning when he hung up the phone.

Optimus asked, "What was all that about?"

Lennox replied, "Y'know how I said I might have an idea? Well, do you remember Tech Sgt. Chase?" When Optimus nodded, the NEST leader outlined his plan.

Wheeljack, Jazz, and now Chase working in such close proximity to one another had to be nearing some sort of intelligence/engineering/sense of humor critical mass. But if Chase could inspire an injury-grounded seekerling to fight though her sky-hunger, Optimus would deal with all the rest of it.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Once Sam and Carly spoke to Will about having their ceremony on base, everything femme or female went into full-out Wedding Mode. Cybertronians didn't have a concept of legal marriage, but moving in together was an occasion for a party, and there were religious rituals to bless new sparkbonds. The bots were all curious about the human customs.

Optimus asked Diarwen, "Why do they throw birdseed at the couple?"

A truckload of supplies that Ratchet had ordered had got as far as Las Vegas when the truck broke down. Prime had decided the simplest thing was to go up there and get it himself. Diarwen was riding along. She explained, "It is an old Pagan fertility custom that has carried over to modern times, though originally whatever grain grew locally was used, and later rice became traditional. It wishes the young couple many healthy children. People switched to birdseed because it was found that birds would eat the uncooked rice and be harmed by it."

"Are other traditions from your youth still practiced?"

"Well, many pagans choose to be handfasted rather than married by Christian customs, and those ceremonies are very similar. But among Christians? Let me think. We have wedding rings, and so do they. But then so do many human cultures which did not have contact with the Sidhe. I believe that the ring is a symbol of eternity that many cultures have in common, of which mine is only one. They do not have the handfasting cords. Jumping the broom is a custom adopted by modern pagans, which originated in African practices and is often used in African-American Christian weddings, but it has nothing to do with the Sidhe. We have the wedding cup, and some Christian services have Holy Communion as part of the ceremony, but I don't know if the two are related. In any case, it has a totally different significance now. What are your customs surrounding blessing a sparkbond?"

"It is not the same as marriage. From what I have been able to determine, marriage is a statement that a new family has begun, and a pledge by the new couple to remain together for life."

"Yes."

"We do not need such a ceremony, because there is no need for a couple who have already bonded to pledge to remain in the relationship. A bond cannot be broken, it is evidence in and of itself that a lifelong commitment already exists. The blessings call for Primus' special protection for the couple, because if one is deactivated, the other soon follows. It is a serious time, though one of great joy also."

Diarwen nodded. "That sounds similar to a ritual which my people have for blessing soulmates. It is the same for siblings or friends as for lovers. Handfastings are another thing, and take place generally at Beltane."

Optimus slowed down as they neared a construction zone. "What about the festival that will be occurring soon? Lughnasadh?"

"A Celtic festival in honor of the god Lugh. He held funeral games in honor of His Mother, Tailtiu, and the custom continued. It became to the Celts what the early Olympics were in Ancient Greece. Also, at that time, there were first-fruits harvest festivals. Lugh is especially honored at this time because He is a storm god. We call upon Him to protect the crops still ripening in the fields from storm damage. Lughnasadh is the first of the three harvest festivals, the others being Mabon and Samhain."

"So, it has nothing to do with weddings." They jounced over the reason for the construction zone.

"On the contrary, it is second only to Beltane as a popular time to be handfast or wed. Again, the association is between ripening grain and fertility. Also, through much of human history, once a woman was wed, she almost immediately became pregnant. If she was wed at Lughnasadh, the baby was born around Beltane, when there was sufficient food available to support a lactating woman. But the main emphasis of Lughnasadh itself is on the coming sacrifice of the God, and His rebirth at Yule."

"Sacrifice? That _is_ a figurative thing, isn't it?"

"In this day and age, yes, since the first of the blueberries or blackberries stand in for the King himself, it is symbolic. The sacrifice of creatures or of people was never a practice among my people, not that I know of—perhaps long, long ago such was true, but it predates written or oral records, if so. I can remember a time when it was not unknown for the Celts to sacrifice people. To the best of my knowledge it was done willingly; an aging king or high priest who felt that his life had reached its destined end might choose such a death for the benefit of the people. You know of the bog bodies? They were often such. It was not our people's way, but we did not judge them for it. The humans have not carried out such a sacrifice for many generations. Now, sometimes a figure of the corn god is made of bread, then symbolically sacrificed to the gods. It is left on the altar for the length of the rite, by which time the gods have had their fill, and then eaten by the humans. That was a necessity for a long time; no food could be wasted. Now it is seen as a way to share with the gods."

Optimus negotiated a flagman's permission to cross the working area and said, "I thought that being Prime was complex!"

Diarwen laughed, and waved as they passed the flagman. "And so being Prime may be, but no less so than being human or Sidhe! We are mindful that our lives depend on the sacrifice of our crops, and of the animals that we raise, or hunt. It is impossible for agricultural societies to separate themselves from the knowledge that, for life to continue, other things must die. That is why there are so many harvest festivals. Even in modern America, where city people often seem unaware of where their food comes from, there remains a harvest festival on Thanksgiving Day."

"But by 'harvest,' you always mean 'kill to eat.'"

She paused for a moment, the silver eyes reaching to the horizon for the right words. "Optimus, this is the reality of organic life, and even vegetarians cannot escape it entirely. Plants do live and die. But we know that there are no endings, only beginnings, on that unending spiral. That is the lesson of Lughnasadh, and of Mabon and Samhain. Beyond death, is life, for us no less than John Barleycorn, or the hart taken in the chase."

"You accept the necessity of death, yet you will fight as hard for life as anyone I have ever known," Optimus rumbled, and she wasn't sure he was not laughing.

"I see no contradiction. This is the life that I have been given. It is my duty to live it as well as I can, since others sacrifice their own lives that I may endure, and to learn everything possible from it. Just because I know that this road comes to an end, does not mean I see any need to rush things. Not now that I have reasons to stay," she smiled.

"I am glad that you have found reasons," he said, and they rolled on in amicable silence.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

A medical helo came to a landing in front of the largest of the three Quonset huts at the NEST Base. The faces of the crew in the back nearly matched the ginger patient's hair, and they were laughing so hard it took them an extra thirty seconds to get him off the helo. Two of them pushed his gurney, while the third unloaded his gear.

Bobby Epps came running. "Chase! Welcome home, man!"

The redhead pulled him into a surprisingly strong bear hug and back-slap. "Great to be here, Epps! Did my wheels get here yet?"

"Got a couple of crates back in medbay, might be in one of them."

Chase grinned. Epps stepped back to give the medics room, and they continued on inside.

One of the flight nurses was new to the base. She made the mistake of taking her eyes off Chase to scan for Cybertronians, and Chase was not slow to take advantage of her inattention.

She got pretty good elevation on the jump to get herself out of butt-pinch range. The squeak was high-quality, too, turning a few optics her way. But the scowl afterwards took the ex-Tech Sargeant aback.

"What the fuck, asshole?" she said, her hands on her hips. "Elise, can you cope with this jerk?"

Elise, who was twenty years older than either of them, said calmly, "Yeah, no problem."

Chase felt the gurney shudder, then stabilize. "Why did a butt-pinch make me a jerk?" he said to Elise, hoping for an answer.

Probably not the one he got, though. "It don't make you a jerk," the middle-aged, slender black woman said calmly. "It makes you somebody who's gotta prove he _ain't_ a jerk."

"I don't understand. In Louisville -"

"This ain't Louisville, son. That what they do in the south, by way of sayin' hello to a girl?"

"Some of 'em."

"Well, here, those guys'd be up on charges in a week. And they'd be up on separate charges for each girl they pinched. That's not something you get away with if you're in the Army, and not if you're a contractor, either, son. This's the north, not the south, so you better leave them low-down ways behind you, and behave respectfully toward the women you meet."

Chip laughed. It had a bitter ring to it. "From a wheelchair, that ain't hard."

"Met my husband when he was in a wheelchair," Ellie said. "We had twenty good years together. Still in a wheelchair when he died. Makes some things harder, some easier. Which ones? That's sort of up to you."

By the time two orderlies came over to help transfer Chase from the helo's gurney to a hospital bed, he had a lot to think about.

Being paralyzed, and having more or less come to terms with it as quickly as he could, Chip let them move him, and ignored the whole process. One of the men moved to the head of his bed and raised it.

Chip saw Parker heading his way, with a young man he had never seen before.

"Hey, Doc. I hear I got you to thank that I lived long enough to get to the hospital. And here I thought you didn't like me."

"Just doing my job," she shot back, with a reluctant grin that was nonetheless ear-to-ear. "Walter Reed get fed up with you already?"

"It was mutual."

"I'll bet. Chip Chase, this is your caregiver, Jack Binns. Jack, I have a patient in Exam 3. When you get Chip settled, turn his light on and I'll get his entrance exam as soon as I can. Chip, I need those crates in your quarters or wherever you need them ASAP."

"Yes, sir."

Binns pulled the door shut behind her to take care of Chase's personal needs after the long trip from the East Coast. "Do you need to rest, sir?"

"I'm tired, but it can wait till I check out my gear and get a bite to eat. You Army?"

"No, sir, they weren't letting people like me serve openly when I got out of school. I'm a civilian contractor, a home-care assistant. I'm gonna wait until after the election before I decide whether to enlist."

Chase grinned. "Don't call me 'sir,' I work for a living. Guess that makes sense. For what it's worth, whether you volunteer or not, I don't give a crap if you _are_ straight as long as you can _shoot_ straight. Let's get this show on the road. Got my manual chair somewhere?"

Binns brought it out and whistled. "That's one nice set of wheels." The chair had knobby wheels designed for traction, a heavy frame and much larger, sturdier-than-normal front casters.

"That's exercise equipment," Chip explained. "There are faster, more maneuverable chairs, but this one goes places you wouldn't believe." He pulled on a pair of fingerless gloves. Jack helped him transfer, and Chip fastened his restraints.

The crates were waiting by the outer door. The two men got them open, and Chip had Jack put his computer in his quarters. He'd set it up and check it out after he got settled. In his experience a computer setup never went without a hitch.

The other crate contained his powered chair and two tool boxes. "Where do you want these?"

"Don't know, where's my work space going to be? I need a bench I can reach and that's about it."

"I don't know either," Jack said. "I was assigned here from Nellis."

"We'll find out. They can go in my quarters until I get a work space. Let's get me transferred to my power chair." They did that, then Chip leaned forward, carefully supporting himself on his arms, while he instructed Jack in attaching a set of leads to his back. He hit the power button, then the chair rolled back and forth and rotated in place, seemingly without any direction.

"Looks good. I'll run a diagnostic when I get my rig set up, but I don't think it was damaged in transit. Let's find the mess, I could eat a horse."

A few minutes later, crates disposed of, Binns and Chase headed for the mess.

Parker saw them leaving and yelled, "Hey, you're not going anywhere till I get your intake exam done!"

"I'm starvin', Doc!" Chip complained.

"The sooner you get this done, the sooner you can go hit on the cooks," she replied. "Over here in two. This won't take long if you cooperate. So this is the Mighty Miracle Chair, huh?"

That got Chip started showing it off. Parker listened with one ear while she looked over his chart. "Partial, temporary C4, complete T7."

"You can pretty much scratch all the C4 stuff. They moved the respirator out of my room a week ago," Chip said.

"All right," she said, pulling a chair to face him. "Do you need assistance in removing your shirt?"

"No, do you?"

Parker rolled her eyes, and deliberately plopped an icy stethoscope where she knew he had sensation.

After that, Chip settled down, more because he wanted to get out of there and get something to eat than to please Parker. The CMO, happy with the results of the exam, said, "Tomorrow we'll get you set up with O'Callaghan for your PT and specialist appointments."

"That's the VA hospital here?"

"Federal Medical Center. It's an Air Force hospital, serves Nellis and all the other Air Force facilities around here in addition to the Veterans' Administration. Technically this is a triage center for O'Callaghan. If you need more than urgent care, more than a night or two in a bed, you'll end up there."

"Great, I'm going to be on the road the whole damn time," he griped.

"It's Interstate most of the way, it isn't that bad, and if you ask the right mech to take you, the trip isn't that long either," she replied. "Gets you off base for a while, anyway."

"There's that."

She flipped his chart shut, and turned off the "Doctor inside" light by the door. "The mess is about halfway down the commons to your left. Were you here before?"

"Nope, just Diego and New York."

"It's laid out pretty much the same as New York, except that some of the bots have quarters in Building C, and Building A is all human quarters."

"Thanks, Doc."

After getting some food and a cup of coffee, Chip decided he wasn't so tired after all, and he might as well find out where he could set up his work bench. "Jack, what's your schedule?"

"I'm permanently assigned as your assistant, so we can work it out as we go. Five eight-hour days or four tens, whatever works for you. I'm not authorized to work overtime. The medbay staff will work with you when I'm not here."

"OK. I guess when we find out what my doctor's appointment schedule's going to be, we can work out yours," Chip said.

"Works for me." They headed over to the bot side of medbay. Chip knocked, then opened the door and rolled in, with Jack right behind him.

Chip greeted Jolt and Ratchet, then Jolt called Que in and they admired the ingenious control system for Chip's wheelchair. Que asked permission, then attached a hardline to the chair to look at its programming.

Optimus had given Ratchet a helms-up that Chase was coming, and told him about Lennox' plan. Ratchet had said nothing to Skysong, but he had put off her latest round of language upgrades until Chip arrived. He attached a small datapad to a port on the back of her neck, taped it in place, then put her down on the medbay floor under Arcee's watchful gaze—near where Chip extolled the chair's myriad virtues to Jolt and Que.

Ratchet sent, ::Watch where you put your peds. I put Skysong on the floor, I hope she'll get curious about Sgt. Chase while she's waiting for her upgrades to install.::

Que took a nonchalant step to the right, so the sparkling could have an unobstructed view.

Unaware that he was putting on a show, Chase demonstrated that the chair could spin in its own length, and the seat height adjusted to allow working at different heights or even reaching into kitchen cabinets. "The chair can climb curbs and steps, but I have to use the hand controls for that. Still working on those programming modules."

The sound of the chair's motors attracted Skysong's attention, and she watched the chair's funny antics. It wasn't a bot. It wasn't even a drone. What was it? Then she realized there was a human sitting in it. She crawled forward, her ruined wings rustling in the supporting braces that Que had made for them.

Chip looked over there. "Well, who have we here? Who's the cute little bluejay?"

Arcee followed. "This is Skysong."

"Hi, Skysong. I'm Chip."

"Chee-ip?"

He laughed, "Close enough." He took out his phone, pulled up an app, and tapped something in. The phone whistle-clicked the Cybertronian word for "data chip." Her optics brightened and she stared up at him, then repeated the sounds.

She made her slow way over to the chair. Chip let her explore until she started to bite the tire. "Don't put that in your mouth, kid, you don't know where it's been. Wanna ride?"

She turned her head sideways and looked at him. He held out his hands, and she reached for him. Chip said, "Somebody give her a boost. I don't know how to pick her up without hurting her."

Arcee obliged. "Be careful, Chip, she has sharp talons. She knows she can hurt humans, but if she thinks she might fall, she'll latch on without thinking."

"I got her," Chip assured them. Very carefully, he turned her around so she was facing forward.

"Can I get a couple of rolled-up towels? That might cushion her wings a bit," he said. She wasn't heavy, even with her attached framing, but the weight of her wings made her a bit unsteady on his lap.

Ratchet obliged, for once without the frown of worry all of them were used to seeing on his faceplates when he worked with the shattered sparkling.

Chip showed her that the chair went in the direction he told it to through the joystick (briefly shutting down his contact plates to do so). Then he put her little servo on the chair's joystick.

Arcee said, "Are you sure that's a good idea?"

Chip said, "I can override the hand control if I have to. She's fine."

There is quite a long stretch of human childhood during which "agency," the ability to affect the outside world, is the sole subject under discussion. It encompasses both shoving one's applesauce off the high-chair tray to watch it fall, and learning to drive. Agency is magic: and Skysong needed that magic.

She looked up at Chip, gave him a smile that came very close to breaking his heart, and began to find her way into driving the chair. Chip intervened only when she nearly drove them underneath a storage unit; the edge of it would neatly have removed his head from his shoulders. But once they were out of danger, she looked up at him and said, "Again?"

He smiled down at her. "Go ahead, sweetheart."

But her upgrade chose that moment to drop her into recharge when it began to integrate. Ratchet took her, gently removed the datalink without waking her, and settled her on her berth.

Chip asked, "What happened to her?"

Arcee explained, "She was outside playing with her brothers when she saw her reflection in the windshield of a truck. She dived right into it and crashed through the windshield. She almost died, and damaged her wings beyond repair."

"There's nothing that can be done?"

"Not until she's ready to upgrade to her youngling frame, and that's going to be two years at the earliest," Ratchet said. "And she isn't capable yet of understanding that she won't be like this for the rest of her life. Seekers' programming is different from ours. There's...well, you can't call it a glitch because it's an interaction of several things that have to be the way they are. But they need to be in the air. The glyphs translate sky-hunger. If they can't fly, they don't want to live."

"That's why she's in that box—she's on suicide watch?"

Ratchet nodded. "But that won't help in the long run. If somebot really wants to deactivate, eventually they will. I've seen it too many times with civilian refugees back on Cybertron."

"Look, I can't walk, but I've got this chair. Why in the hell can't you build her something she can fly around on?"

Ratchet, Wheeljack and Jolt just stared at him, long enough to make him really nervous. "Hey! I don't give a shit if it is some kind of taboo, she's a baby! Whatever it takes!"

Jolt shook himself hastily, and glanced at Ratchet before he explained, "It isn't like that, Chip. It's—we reformat if something is irreparable. We _don't_ _have _wheelchairs or anything like that. No one _thought_ of that. But...it might work!"

Wheeljack said, "She certainly showed an interest in your chair, and she caught on to the controls quickly enough. Let me see what I can do with the technology that I have available here. Anti-gravity simply would not be possible..." The inventor's voice trailed off behind him as he headed for his lab.

Chip rolled over to the berth, and raised the wheelchair seat until he could see over the edge. From the outside, the holoscreens were nearly transparent, and he could see Skysong lying in her nest of blankets, which protected her injured wings from the hard surface of the berth. "Hang in there, kiddo," he said, running a pensive finger along the screen. "We'll figure something out."

End Chapter 10


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Disclaimers in Chapter 1

Preparations for Sam and Carly's wedding had gone on in the background over the last few days. Carly had no one to ask to be bridesmaids, since she had not really made a lot of school friends and hadn't been in one place long enough to grow close to any other women since. Sam would have asked Leo Spitz, his college roommate, to be his best man, but in the end, settled for a simple, casual invitation to the wedding.

He put his arm around Carly. "There are lots of neighbors here, Carly. You'll make friends."

She smiled. She really had little in common with most of the NEST wives, or with any of the three NEST husbands, for that matter. They tended to be southern, and rural. Few had been to college, some had not graduated high school. She was not trying to be a snob, but they had not read the same books—many of them did not even like to read at all—and they did not watch the same things on TV. Carly knew nothing about their passions for NASCAR, or American football, and nothing about deer hunting. Some of their kids played "soccer," but no one followed what she considered "real" football, or knew anything about her favorite players. She did know quite a bit about cars, but that was a subject preferred by the men. No one else liked classical music, and no one played the piano. They had all tried to find something to talk about and failed spectacularly, for the most part.

Until impending motherhood had given her something in common with nearly all of them. Now, they had plenty to talk about. But whether or not that was enough to build friendships remained to be seen.

"Carly, are you going to be miserable living here? Because if you want to go back to DC, we can do that."

"And take Bee away from his family again? He hates DC."

"He'd put up with it, at least a few months out of the year, if you were happier there."

"I just don't make a very good housewife, Sam. I feel like I'm not doing anything. And it's hard to gossip over the back fence when you don't have anything in common to gossip about."

Sam nodded. She had always had a career where she felt that she was doing something important. Then Dylan had come along, and her whole world blew up around her. Now she was pregnant and feeling like she had no more purpose than a tumbleweed. This wasn't a matter of place, but of direction. In one of those moments of clarity that he had come to accept as life in the world of Sam Witwicky, he thought of a project that would call on all the skills that she'd used when she worked for the British Embassy. "Write a book."

Carly laughed. "Do what?"

Sam said, "Write a book. You're good at writing speeches, why not something longer? Everything's out in the open now, so you don't have to worry about things being classified. Someone's going to write the story of the first alien people to settle on earth. You could tell NEST's side of it before somebody like Galloway decides to cash in. I mean, it's almost guaranteed to become a movie."

Carly was intrigued in spite of herself. And being an author sounded a lot better than being unemployed. "I guess I could have a go. I could interview anyone who'd want to. I should probably ask Prime and Col. Lennox' permission first."

"I don't think they'd mind. I mean, someone's going to do it, right? Better that it's you, when you're right here and they can work with you to make sure you've got all the facts straight."

"Right."

"Did you get your dress OK?" Sam asked her.

"Yes, I did; no, you can't see it," she told him.

"You'll be gorgeous in it."

"How do you know?"

"Because you're gorgeous in anything."

Carly laughed. "You don't have to flatter me, you know."

"Yes, I do. Because you are."

"Tell me that when I'm out to here and can't see my feet."

"I will," he said. And she knew that he would; that was part, but not all, of the reason that Carly Spencer loved Sam Witwicky.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Charlotte Mearing and Seymour Simmons left the busy commons for the more businesslike atmosphere of ops. It was a quiet day. Mirage was near Flagstaff, checking the energon detectors along I-40, but everyone else was on base, mostly preparing for Sam and Carly's wedding the next day.

Lennox asked, "Director, do you have a moment?"

"Of course. My office?"

"Thank you, sir."

Once the door was closed, Mearing asked, "What do you need, Colonel?"

"What do you know about Sector 13?"

"Until you ran across them, I had no idea that the agency existed. The Sectors operate completely independently of one another."

"Are there...we can surmise at least another 11 Sectors out there?"

"At least ten. I know for a fact that Sector 3 no longer exists. That's all I can tell you about it."

"Director, I sincerely hope there's better oversight for the others, or the next time something turns up hidden under a dam, it's liable to take everything west of the Mississippi with it when it goes down. Sir, we both know there's going to _be_ a next time, there always is. When one of these crises is in the wind, it would most likely save lives if I heard about it before my people have to nail the lid back on hell. If we're going to be the go-to guys for everything weird that happens, that changes our mission statement. I need to know what to train for, what weapons to ready, what support we need. S13 could not have contained Sufri without NEST's assistance, but if Hook hadn't been a victim, we might never have gotten involved until it got too far out of hand to maintain secrecy. This is a matter of national security. What if there's something out there a little smarter than Sufri? What if some foreign power or extremist group cuts a deal with it? Then instead of a mass murderer on the loose, we'd have a WMD out there, with our own culture of secrecy working against resolving the situation."

"I agree with your concerns, Colonel, and I'll bring them to the President's attention."

"That's all I can ask, sir."

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Barricade asked Wheeljack, "Are you sure about that thing? Because even when I was with the 'Cons we heard all about you and your inventions!"

Ratchet did not tell him that there was a very good reason why Wheeljack's lab adjoined the medbay.

Wheeljack said, "I was designing weapons then. Is it so surprising that things _meant_ to explode occasionally _do_?"

"This thing looks like the humans built it." He cast a skeptical optic on a modified ultralight airplane that was sitting on a bench in the middle of the inventor's lab. It looked ridiculously tiny, flimsy, nothing any sane mech would trust a sparkling's life to.

"They did, originally," Wheeljack said. "The objective is to get her back in the air as quickly as possible, so I began with this vehicle and modified it for safety. For one thing, I replaced the engine with a Cybertronian power plant to reduce the possibility of engine failure to almost nil. Then I replaced the pilot's seat with this assembly. Skysong can magna-lock to it however she is most comfortable, and the padding and safety cage will protect her wings in case she has a hard landing. The rest of the structural supports have been replaced with our alloys. It's very safe."

Barricade cautiously spun the propeller with one claw. "This fan is the only thing that holds it up?"

"It's a very sound aerodynamic design, Barricade."

"How does she control it? She knows how to fly by flapping her wings, and using her thruster as a booster."

Ratchet said, "I extracted the module of youngling programming that transitions them to fixed-wing frames when they outgrow their sparkling frames, and deleted everything but the code she will need to comprehend fixed-wing flight, and a simplified vocabulary in both English and Cybertronian. She hasn't matured enough to simply download the flight protocols, but she can be taught to pilot. I wanted the control system for the plane itself to be as transparent to her as possible. Here's the control module, and we replaced all the levers and pedals with these servomotor assemblies. She hardlines to this port, and with a little practice, it should be nearly as natural to her as flying under her own power."

Wheeljack said, "The next one will be much more like a small flying drone, with actual sensor input from the wings and other control surfaces so that she'll get an almost natural feedback. But that's going to take more time to design and build, and she needs to learn the basics first anyway."

"Who's gonna teach her?"

"Since we have no Aerialbots, we've enlisted Dr. Parker, who is licensed to fly ultralight planes. Hers will be delivered here one day next week."

Barricade had just proved to all of them yet again how good a parent he was, but he knew as well as they did that he had no other choice, for Skysong's sake, than to accept this ridiculous, flimsy, _human-made_ machine. Right now it presented the only available way out of her dilemma.

A squabble over a ball broke out in medbay, and he left to sort it out. Inventor and healer looked at each other, knowing that that was all the "go ahead" they would get.

Ratchet helped Wheeljack cover the very small plane, then they locked up the lab. "Have you had your energon yet?"

Wheeljack shook his helm. "In fact, I think I skipped refueling this morning as well."

"Come on, we're going to find you redlined with your helm on your bench again," Ratchet said. He grasped Wheeljack's arm as if to prevent him from escaping, and bore him off to the nearest dispenser.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Carly and Sam decided to get married outside in the evening. It would have cooled down by then, and no decorations they would put up inside could compare to the glory of a desert sunset. There was also the consideration that the base used the chapel at Nellis AFB. Since there was no chapel here, an indoor wedding would have had to be held in the commons. It would have been interesting to try to decorate the area while everyone had to live and work in there.

Carly had delegated the wedding music to Diarwen, only requesting "Canon in D" for her walk down the aisle, rather than the more traditional wedding march from Lohengrin, and stating her preference for classical music in general. Diarwen had played enough weddings to be familiar with the classical repertoire most used in Christian ceremonies, and Pachelbel's "Canon" was among her favorites.

She played near the small table which would serve as the altar. This was, Diarwen was thankful, going to be a nondenominational ceremony, since Carly had been raised C of E, and Sam was a nominal Sunday-school Protestant who hadn't practiced since junior high school and did not claim a particular faith.

At least it was not a Catholic ceremony. Diarwen was ashamed that, even after the people who had wronged her were generations dead, she still harbored a certain prejudice against Catholics. She frequently had to remind herself that Pagans claimed to honor all paths to the Divine, but that was easier to give lip service than to live by.

It was time to get rid of excess baggage, time to leave the past in the past, but Diarwen wasn't sure how to do that. Some battlefields were harder to leave than others. Sometimes the war went on, for those who had served, long after the fighting ended. How did one begin to forgive genocide? Some things could _not_ be forgiven, maybe only accepted, but she was holding people responsible who had not been involved. That had to stop.

She shook herself and called to Epps, who was removing a large stone from what would be the back of the aisle after they set up the folding chairs, "Can you hear all right in the back?"

"Play as loud as you'll be playing tomorrow," Epps replied, and Diarwen obliged. He thumbsed-up.

Diarwen put away her harp to help him with the chairs, and they walked back to the Quonset huts together for the evening meal.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Late that evening, Diarwen went for a walk out under the stars. Weddings had always reminded her of her own marriage, and her loss, but now she remembered Orthelion with more nostalgia than aching grief. She missed him, she always would. She remembered his dark hair, the legacy of a human ancestor, and his sky-blue eyes. She remembered his smile and his laugh.

A year ago, those memories would still have made her cry, if she dwelt on them. But now, she only hoped that, wherever he was, he was happy.

Had he chosen yet to be reborn?

Had he found his soulmate?

She sat on a rock and looked up at the stars. She traced the swath of the Milky Way, looked for the constellations that she had learned as a child. The night sky had made minor but visible changes over her long years. The stars were still there, however, and it remained possible to trace those old patterns.

But nobody else looked for the Harp any more, or the Unicorn, or the Cauldron. Now, stargazers sought Ursa Major, or Scorpio, or Leo.

Change was the only constant.

Diarwen stood and went back to the Quonset huts.

She was about to go in the back door of the smaller building where her quarters were located, when she heard the quiet rumble of an engine, and looked up to see Prime sitting at the end of the runway in his alt form.

From the quiet state of his aura, she guessed that he might be meditating, and didn't want to disturb him. But he was aware of her, and unlatched his passenger door, a silent invitation. With a smile, she left the circle of light by the door and crossed a strip of sand to join him.

"Good evening, Optimus."

"Good evening," he replied.

"What brings you out this fine evening?"

"The last of the stack of data pads on my desk," he replied. "It has been a long time since my work has been caught up. Such a rare occurrence deserves celebration. I thought to go for a drive. Would you like to come with me?"

"I should love to. I went for a walk earlier, but I have no wish to go to my room so early."

He drove toward Tranquility. If anyone had asked what he was doing, he would have told them he was patrolling the base fence and checking on the energon detectors which dotted its length. But that required very little attention, unless the routines he had set to monitor flagged a problem. He paid much more attention to his surroundings, on the alert for anything that "just didn't look right." That was nothing he could explain, but he knew he would not have to explain it to Diarwen, or to Lennox or Ironhide, for that matter. In fact, he had recently learned Lennox's English phrase for the unshakeable feeling that something undefined is wrong: "That just don't look right."

The perimeter road turned off about five miles from Tranquility. This "road" was nothing but a dirt track worn by the passage of many tires over the past few years. Once they reached the badlands, there were places where boulders had been chucked off the track, and a few places where a judicious blast or two from Ironhide's cannons had cleared the trail adequately for Autobots and Army hummers. But here, the landscape was flat sand broken only by the perimeter fence and a few tumbleweeds.

The fence's uselessness as a barrier was proven by the occasional set of ped prints which did not stop at, and were not diverted by, it. It served only to mark the property line, and provided a good place for the Army to post No Trespassing signs.

One of the detectors needed a recharge. Optimus plugged a hardline to it and waited while it recharged, a process of a few minutes—too fast and he would burn it out.

Diarwen said, "I have never lived in the desert before. It never fails to amaze me how much life is here when, at first glance, it seems so barren."

Optimus detached his hardline and used its slightly prehensile properties to tap the battery cover back in place before retracting it. "There is a metaphor in that, I believe."

"Yes," she replied.

"Diarwen, is something troubling you?"

She shook her head, and looked up at him—even kneeling in the sand to work on the detector, he towered over her. "Not, troubling, precisely..." She paused, organizing her thoughts. "I find myself at the end of a time of mourning that I thought would never run its course. After all this time..."

Gently he said, "You are not the first to have told me that, over the vorns. I have had many people come to me asking if it was _all right_ to stop mourning, as if in the face of such losses they had no right to do anything other than live the rest of their lives in memory of those no longer here. All we are told is that everyone grieves at their own pace. My traditions offer no instructions for what to do after that, other than for memorial rituals and so forth. Getting on with life is presented as a matter of course, but I don't believe it is ever that simple."

"Perhaps it is not meant to be," she replied, after a thoughtful silence.

"Do you want to go back to base? Mirage has already checked the rest of these today."

"Not unless you do. It is too lovely a night to be indoors," she replied.

"Would you like to go to the lake? Or into Las Vegas?"

"Oh, the lake, please. Noise and crowds do not appeal to me this evening," she smiled.

A seemingly aimless drive across the desert led to a road, and they followed it, completely alone, until it petered out near a dry stream bed. Optimus let her out and transformed after five hundred meters, when the stream bed narrowed and twisted around boulders. Diarwen took her usual position, holding tight to his shoulder strut as he made his way down the wash. Eventually, after wandering a bit, it led to the lake shore. A white band of mineral deposits glimmered under the stars, testimony to the low water level.

While climate change was leading to higher sea levels, changing patterns of rainfall led to less water in Lake Mead, threatening both the electricity and the water it supplied to Las Vegas. It was lack of water, though, not lack of power, that might eventually make the city a ghost town.

She had seen great cities rise and fall before. It was as natural a life cycle as any other.

This huge lake, however, was not natural. It seemed as if it might have been here for millennia, but it had yet to celebrate its first century. Merely the blink of an eye. This was the power that humanity wielded—that of engineering and technology. Foreign to her, yet able to change the very face of the land in greater ways than Sidhe magic had ever dared. It scared her, but it excited her also—concurrent with the possibility for catastrophe if they continued to ignore the effects that their actions had on the world around them was the opportunity to achieve the fantastic if they ever learned to act with wisdom and forethought.

A brightly-lit houseboat full of people having a party floated by, far enough away for the two of them to go unnoticed in the dark. The boat tied up on the far shore of the inlet, its music drifting softly across the water on the cool evening breeze.

"Diarwen, how are you feeling?"

"Much better. Even Dr. Parker admits that I am recovering."

"I am glad to hear that," Optimus said. He was sitting on the bank of the wash, where a ten-foot cliff made him a convenient seat.

He leaned over to offer Diarwen a lift to the top, and once she stepped off his servo, she checked the sand for anything wiggly before she sat down. The wiggly things in this area could very well be scorpions.

Optimus saw what she was doing, and explained, "I've already scanned the area with proximity sensors. I don't want something to make itself at home behind an armor plate, so that I carry it home with me."

"Ah! Useful talent, that. You detect things as relatively tiny as scorpions?"

"I can, when not doing anything else requiring the processor resources," he replied. "It is wise to either do that, or engage water seals to keep such things out. I got into the habit of using proximity sensors long ago, thanks to the threat of Decepticon micro-drones. No larger than your scorpions, if carried back to base they could reveal its location or perform simple missions of sabotage, or even assassination, given a bit of luck."

"All in all, I think I would prefer scorpions," she said. "I hadn't thought of Cybertronians smaller than Brains and Wheelie."

"Well, micro-drones are not mecha. Of truly sentient, self-aware mecha, symbionts are often smaller than an average sparkling, though they are highly dependent on their carriers and spend at least a part of each orn docked, much as Gaia does. Minibots can be human-sized, Pretenders for example. But there have been fully framed and sparked Cybertronians who were much smaller than Brains or Wheelie. They were rare, and nearly always purpose-built mecha, but they existed."

"And others the size of cities."

"Yes. Omega Supreme and Metroplex on our side, and Trypticon for the Decepticons, were the largest Cybertronians that I personally have seen. Long ago there were sparked colony stations, perhaps an Earth mile in length."

"Do you think any of them could still be out there?"

"I won't say it is impossible. Cybertron no longer had records of them when I was working as a clerk. Ours is a very long history, however, and if records were lost it would not have been the first time. I think every young clerk made that search, or a similar one. We all dreamed of making a discovery such as a lost cityformer."

"Would that not be amazing? In time, perhaps, we can look. There are others of your people still out there, are there not?"

"Yes. We are missing clanmates whom I _know_ still live, Drift, Hound, Perceptor, a few younglings a little older than Bumblebee, a femme healer named Moonracer. Many of us have caught distant echoes of them in the clan bonds, and believe them to be together and making their way here. Clan bonds are not like those joining cohort. At this distance, all I do know is that they are alive. But Drift is a capable leader, and Hound a strong second."

"May Epona grant them safe journey."

"Indeed. In addition to that group, there were many scattered bands of neutrals who fled Cybertron and its constant warring long ago. Some of them most likely have survived, if they could avoid predation by the Decepticons. Whether or not they choose to heed my call to gather here, however, remains to be seen. Many of them held the Autobots as responsible for the ruin of Cybertron as they did the Decepticons. They may prefer to make their own way, at least until we have proven that the war has ended."

"Time will attend to that." Diarwen drew her BDU shirt closer around her. The desert was cool at night, especially after the heat of the day.

Optimus curled his servo around her, offering some shelter from the cool breeze off the lake. Without conscious thought, she leaned back into his palm, as the outer layers of their auras began to mesh.

Diarwen felt tears come to her eyes. It would be so easy to reach out to him—but she was unsure how such would be received. She blinked the tears away. Fool to want what she could not have. Better to summon up what grace she had and accept this quiet evening, these stolen moments, this friendship. Let her fool heart ache.

She might have been surprised to find that Optimus' feelings were much the same.

They stayed there for another hour, or so, absorbing the peace, letting the pain ebb.

On their return, Diarwen climbed to the ground near her building's back door. Optimus paid no attention to Ratchet and Mirage catching some cool night air at the back of the main hangar, nor did he see the scowl that drew the old healer's brow plates together for a moment before he went back to his medbay.

Mirage crossed the sand to his leader. "_Bella notte_, no?"

"It is that."

"It is not my concern, Optimus, but be aware...others, whose concern it also is not, may not be looking kindly upon your friendship with that organic."

Optimus looked at him. The spy was not one to put his wheel into something that didn't concern him without good reason. And he missed very little. "I'll keep that in mind, Mirage."

"The war ends, the same old politics begins, only now based on species rather than caste." Mirage ex-vented. "Those whose actions, and sacrifices, have saved us all deserve more respect."

"It is not just a question of species. Some misleading information about Diarwen is in circulation, and she doesn't want to complicate the situation. She hopes that it will resolve itself, given time. Unless there is a real threat, do nothing. But if you believe a real threat _does_ exist, please inform me immediately."

Mirage nodded. "Certainly, Prime."

-Sidhe Chronicles-

The next day was busy. Only Sam and Bee took the whole day off, for the ultimate preparations and the inevitable last-minute run into Las Vegas.

Everyone else was still involved with the daily tasks of running the base, complicated through the extra work generated by the director's presence. All of the promotions, and other items of lesser importance but greater urgency, which required her presence, were hastily completed.

By itself, that caused a lot of scrambling. The wedding, though, was the continuous topic of conversation everywhere, which only seemed to be encouraged by preparations for the reception in the commons.

The sparklings were too little to understand the human custom of marriage, but they comprehended "a party for Sam and Carly."

Chip and Wheeljack were putting the final touches on the control unit for Skysong's ultralight. Wheeljack had made a ramp to his bench top, and put a human-sized table up there to give Chip a convenient place to work.

Wheeljack had been astounded that the human understood the device as well as he did, but one look at the unit, another at the specs, and the newest civilian contractor knew what he was doing. "Que, may I use some of this code for my chair? What you did here streamlines this whole decision tree. I think it'll fix some of the response time issues I've been trying to work around."

"Certainly, I don't mind at all, but don't you use different coding languages?"

"Well, yes, but it'll port over. Let me show you what I mean." He dragged his laptop around so Que could see its comparatively tiny screen.

Immersed in their comparison of the two control systems, none of them paid any attention to a tiny seekerling crawling along the bench. A stealthy servo purloined the last bit of energon remaining from Que's working breakfast.

That was good, but it wasn't enough. Skysong was still hungry.

Chip had something on his little table—it was dark brown rather than pink, and the thing it came in was not an energon cube, but if he drank it, it must be good! She crept another few feet forward.

Wheeljack saw her reaching forward, but he thought she was after the laptop. He scooted it out of reach further down the table, and Chip followed, leaving his cup completely unguarded. Wheeljack patted her on the helm, very gently, and made sure she wasn't too close to the edge, before he turned his attention back to the laptop screen.

Skysong made her move, her talons closed around her prize and she knocked it back in one triumphant gulp.

The video of this event from Med-Sci would haunt her sparkling and youngling years. The cams were set to follow fast movement, as that often heralded a problem, so with her grab at the cup, they had focused on her.

The little face froze, and then curled itself into a grimace of gargoyle proportions. She gurgled, which somehow managed to become a screech, then ejected an entire enormous mouthful of still-scalding coffee in Chip's direction. He let out a startled screech of his own, and jumped, which sent the motion-controlled chair that he had forgotten to power off into a wild spin. Que caught him, chair and all, as he started to tip over the edge of the bench.

Skysong bubbled the last of the nasty stuff out of her intake pipe, then said, in a little-old-femme tone which was the delight of the common room for several days, "Oh, that _terrible."_

Que unsubspaced a blanket-sized polishing cloth. Chip mopped coffee off himself, the table, and the sparkling.

Ratchet hustled in. "What the f-"

"Language!" Que scolded.

Ratchet surveyed the dripping computer tech. "What happened?"

Chip said innocently, "Skysong doesn't like coffee."

"She drank your coffee?"

"She put it in her mouth, but it didn't stay there long. It won't hurt her, will it?"

"Did you have cream or sugar in it? Real cream. That powdered-aluminum stuff doesn't count."

"No, just black coffee."

"She should be all right then, if she expelled most of it—and it seems that she did. If her feeding protocols have reactivated spontaneously, that's a good sign. That's a _wonderful _sign." Since she had awakened unable to fly, he'd had to use a medical override to make her consume her energon.

Que said, "Yes, it is! I had some energon left in my cube, and that's gone too!" The inventor got another cube and opened it for her. "Let's get that nasty taste out of your oral receptors, sweetspark."

She drank happily. Still mopping up coffee, Chip grinned ear to ear. Suicidal people didn't worry about eating, in his opinion.

When she finished the energon, he gave the top of her helm a good, thorough, and completely unnecessary polishing. She giggled and reached up. By now she knew where she was allowed to put her peds on the wheelchair, so all she needed was for him to give her a little boost, and she was up in his lap.

Ratchet said, "I don't know what you did, Chip—but keep doing it."

"She's a smart little kid. You can't leave her in that berth while she's awake. She'll get bored and then she'll get depressed. We've got to keep her occupied with things that really interest her. Jeez, it isn't like you can forget anything—think back to when you were a bored kid, what did you like to do?"

Ratchet remembered his stint in the hospital, and the medics who had kept him entertained. "I was a little older than Skysong when I was hurt. I had school work, and then the medics let me help them at the desk. She isn't ready for anything like that."

"No, but she likes being around where people are working. What about toys, or markers, or something?" As Chip cleaned up the mess, he made a mental list of sources for big sheets of drawing paper and the largest markers he could think of—things suitable for her clawed servos. Big pieces of sidewalk chalk, maybe? Things from the electronics supply shop that would interest a very young sparkling—she loved Que's lab—they could help her make things that lit up and made noise. Maybe he could teach her one of the very simplified programming languages that had been invented for young children. Chip thought sparklings might just be able to handle that a little earlier in their development than human children—they could try it and see if she enjoyed it, anyway.

He'd begin to spend the first hour of his shift creating toys for her, if Que approved. Somehow, he didn't think that would be a problem.

Que said, "She finished this whole cube too, Ratchet."

"She'll probably go down for recharge pretty soon, then."

"I think she has already," Que said, bemused. Ratchet put her back in her berth for her nap, while Chip left to get a dry shirt.

End Chapter 11


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Disclaimers in Chapter 1

Sam checked his tuxedo pocket for the ring. It was still there, just like it had been the last ten times.

His dad advised, "Calm down, Sam. Everything's going to be fine. That girl's the best thing that ever happened to you."

"Yeah, I know, but I'm not sure it goes both ways, Dad. She's out of my league. _Way _out of my league."

"I felt the same way about your mom. We got engaged after the homecoming game in our senior year of high school. Got married right after I finished boot camp. We were in Homestead when you came along—and two months after that, I was on my way to Kuwait. There she was halfway across the country from her folks, living in this tiny efficiency apartment with a new baby. But we stuck it out, and here it's been twenty-four years. You'll do just fine."

"Yes, sir."

There was a knock. "Are you boys decent?"

Ron grinned. "We're dressed, if that's what you mean."

Judy laughed and opened the human-sized door set into the corner of Bee's larger one. She fussed with Sam's hair, which was rambling away from respectability. Then she took a few pictures of her husband and son. When she was done, Ron got a couple of shots of the two of them, and after that Sam insisted on his right to take the camera.

When all that was done, Judy hugged Sam, careful not to rumple his tux, and kissed his cheek. "Sam, I can't believe you're all grown up and getting married already."

"That's—um—what happens, I guess..."

Ron checked his watch and said, "It's almost time," and the three of them went outside.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

There were six things Sam would always remember about his wedding ceremony.

The cool desert breeze.

Carly, walking down the aisle with flowers in her golden hair and a soft smile on her lips.

The notes of the "Canon" shimmering in the evening air.

The warmth of Carly's hand as they promised themselves to one another.

The glorious colors of the desert sunset.

And, when the chaplain pronounced them husband and wife, when their lips met, the flash of _awareness _of her, of himself, of the child she carried, all forever linked as one. In time, he would come to understand that better, but for now—it was pure wonder.

They ran back down the aisle in a shower of birdseed and well-wishes, to the reception in the commons. It wasn't fancy, but there was plenty of food and drink, both human desserts and the Twins' latest batch of high-grade. They danced late into the night.

Bee found himself cut out of the crowd by the Big Twins, and balked when he saw the box of junk they had collected. "Wait...what...do you...think...you are...going to...do?"

Sides told him, "It's traditional, Bee!"

"Yeah," Sunstreaker replied. "You wouldn't want to disappoint Sam and Carly, now would you?"

Bee was mistrustful enough of the Twins never to take anything they said about human traditions on face value without an Internet search. Some of the results he was shown made him very sorry for the vehicle involved, and he had to remind himself that human machines weren't sentient.

"All right...but kick your...aft...if...interferes...transformation! Still...Guardian!"

"It won't, it won't! We promise. And it all will come off with a little solvent, before you start glitching about that."

Bee whistled with annoyance, but transformed to his alt.

Sam and Carly came out, followed by a gaggle of unmarried females, to find Bee with cans and old boots tied to his back bumper, and the words "Just Married" neatly lettered on his back window.

They met each other's eyes, and didn't laugh.

Carly tossed her bouquet, and there were screams and applause as it dropped into the arms of one of NEST's few female soldiers. She returned the bouquet, and Sam whispered to his new wife, "You're supposed to let her keep one of the flowers."

"Oh!" Carly said, holding the bouquet out for her new friend to choose one. Carly and the soldier—Carly did not know her name—shared a quick hug.

Sam seated the pregnant love of his life, in her high heels, in his low slung guardian. That done, he went around to the driver's side, feeling more adult than he ever had in his life.

They led a parade of cars and Autobots through Tranquility and then back to the hotel they had chosen in Mission City, horns blowing and people yelling out the car windows. Some of the soldiers had found strings of small firecrackers, which they lit and threw when there was no danger of actually hitting anyone. Carly asked, "Sam, what is this?"

"It's just part of the celebration; it's called a chivaree. I think it's for good luck," he grinned.

A cop that they passed turned on his lights and siren and waved at them, grinning. Carly turned bright red, but waved back. People who knew what was going on honked back and screamed, "Chivaree!" at the top of their lungs. Others looked at them strangely, but still waved and took pictures with their cell phones.

By the time they got to the hotel parking lot, Sam was glad Bee was doing the driving, because they were laughing so hard he was sure he would have run into something if he were steering. With a last round of noise, the revelers turned around and went back to base, leaving the newlyweds to check in.

When they reached base, , "_No_, we cannot," said the Prime, without the least hint of impatience in his voice. There had not been the first four times, either. "They have other humans in that hotel, and those humans don't have that much patience! We were," said Optimus, proudly, transforming just outside the fence, "exceptionally noisy. Exceptionally! Just ten of their units below the legal limit, for fourteen minutes and fifty-nine seconds!"

Bright-blue optics blinked. "That's your high-caste idea of a good time? Fourteen minutes and fifty-nine seconds? If they'd had a house, we coulda stayed there all night!" Then dawn came to those optics. "Is that why they went to a hotel? They think that's gonna keep me from throwin' a proper chivaree, one that lasts all night and maybe the next night too, come the proper time?"

Ironhide's optics narrowed, his feet spread a little wider than parade rest, and his clenched fists came to rest on his hips.

"Well, then - they can think again!"

Sidhe Chronicles-

When the wedding party left, the party in the commons changed its tone. The kids were taken home, and the music got louder. Chromia hadn't realized how much she missed Jazz's dance parties, let alone Jazz himself, but now that he was back and the beat was pounding, something wonderful had slotted back into place in her world.

The sparklings began to fuss, and could not be soothed. Chromia wasn't surprised that Flareup helped Cade take the Tiny Trine back to their quarters. As long as someone was there to watch her constantly, Ratchet had declared she was better off at home with her brothers than in medbay; most often, that "someone" was Flareup.

Chromia turned to her bondmate. "Is Flare getting in over her helm?"

Ironhide snorted. "You should be asking that about Cade," he replied. "She's your sister, she can take care of herself—and if she can't, Arcee'll know about it. He already knows if he does anything stupid I'll knock him into next vorn."

"So you're OK with it?"

"Best way I can think of to get rid of the 'us' and 'them.' You?"

"Since it's Cade and not one of the others...yeah, kinda. I lived three doors over from his parents when I was a kid. They were good people."

Ironhide took another swallow of his high-grade. "Didn't know that. How old is he, anyhow?"

"About Flare and Arcee's age, I think. Maybe a little older."

"Chromia, she'll be fine. I doubt it'll last, but they'll have some fun and she'll help with the sparklings-'specially Skysong. Let it ride."

"Yeah." She tossed back the last of her cube and set the empty down. "When's the last time we danced?"

"Primus, it's been a while. Back on Cybertron."

"Let's fix that."

-Sidhe Chronicles-

A few days later in Washington, Charlotte Mearing's secretary buzzed her. "Director, the President's office is on Line 1."

"Thank you, Li." Mearing unconsciously sat up a little straighter, if that were possible, as she took the call. "Charlotte Mearing here."

"Director, please hold for POTUS." Charlotte recognized the voice of the President's secretary.

"Of course."

Just a moment later, the President came on the line. "Director Mearing?"

"Yes, Mr. President."

"I've been looking at these reports that your courier brought over. Are you free this afternoon, in say twenty minutes?"

"Yes, Mr. President." (Or at any rate, that was soon going to be true.)

"Then come on over and bring Mr. Simmons with you."

"Right away, sir!" She buzzed Li. "Have the van pull around and tell Simmons to meet me there. The President wants to see us."

While her secretary was doing that, Charlotte took a few files from a very secure cabinet and put them in a metal briefcase, which she cuffed to her wrist. The key to the cuffs stayed in her desk.

Simmons was sitting by the front doors, using his reflection in them to straighten his tie, when Mearing arrived. "We've been summoned?"

"Yes."

"What did we do now?"

"All he said was, it's about the reports." She hit the button and waited while the doors swung open.

Simmons said only, "Hmm." He waited long enough for the door opening to clear his chair, barely, and got to the lift just as it hit the ground.

Conversation stopped in the driver's presence.

The secret service quickly and efficiently checked their weapons at a security desk and scanned them for anything else they shouldn't be carrying, then gave them visitor's passes.

Just past the security desk, the President's chief of staff, Garrett McKenna, fell into step with them. "You should know, Director, that you've touched off a shitstorm of epic proportions."

"When I realized what I'd uncovered, I rather thought that might be the result. I hope POTUS isn't in a mood to shoot the messenger."

"He never does that, just works them to death."

Mearing had been in the Oval Office many times throughout her career. A few times she had received orders in this room that no other living soul would ever know about.

But familiarity had not lessened the awe she felt whenever she stepped through those doors. She had first been here when the elder Bush had been in office, and had visited every administration since.

Each man who held the office chose different paintings and sculptures to represent what America meant to him. President Obama had chosen busts of Lincoln and King, Remington's famous Bronco Buster sculpture, a painting of Lady Liberty's torch, Native American pottery, and oddly enough, a few patent models. Pride of place, however, was given to a table filled with family photographs which sat under the window behind the desk. To anyone who had taken the oath to protect and defend, those things represented what America was...what they were fighting for.

It brought Charlotte almost to tears to realize that, to her Commander in Chief, America was family. Other things too, of course: history, ideals, and culture. But primarily, family.

Simmons was no less affected, enough to keep him quiet for once. Mearing hoped that lasted, because she didn't want to deal with the kind of trouble his mouth could cause.

The President's aide opened the doors. "Mr. McKenna, Director Mearing, and Mr. Simmons, Mr. President."

Obama looked up. "Come on in. Thank you, Jason, that will be all."

"Thank you, Mr. President." The aide shut the door behind them.

Simmons parked between two sofas. Obama picked up a stack of papers and came around the Resolute desk to sit with them. He asked, "Do you have anything to add to these reports?"

"No, Mr. President," Mearing replied.

"I want to know why I'm finding out about this three years into the term, but that's a question for another time. What we're here to do today is deal with a problem that should have been taken care of a long time ago." He flipped through the sheaf of papers in front of him, and said, "Sector 1, a crater. Sectors 2 and 12, gone dark. Sector 3, captured a demon and got themselves turned into a cult—good work dealing with that, Director."

That mission still replayed itself in Mearing's nightmares almost thirty years after the fact. The junior agent on the team, she was the only one to get inside the building occupied by Sector 3. Seeing what had become of the agents themselves, she called in an airstrike.

There were no survivors.

And after that, the curtain slammed down on the mission. She wrote a report and was debriefed. No transcription of either had ever surfaced.

Publicly, it had gone down as an accident: faulty retaining clips on a live bomb.

The nightmares hadn't lasted long at the time, but they'd come back full-force when she found her own report and the transcription of her debriefing, her identity redacted, among the briefing papers for this assignment.

She said only, "Thank you, Mr. President," and took several file jackets from her briefcase. Obama took a moment to look through them, but it was the same briefing packet that he had received. "Sector 4, Roswell grays. Sector 5, possible appearances of the Anti-Christ. Sector 6, sanctioned and disbanded in 1968 for giving LSD to college kids! I don't think I need to mention Sector 7. Sector 8, bio-weapons research and containment. Sector 9, investigating the deliberate suppression of technology that would make us less dependent on foreign oil. Sector 10, genetic experimentation. Sector 11, psychic research. And Sector 13, things that go bump in the night! Director, this reads like a—a script for a B movie. Let me make this crystal clear. I don't want any aliens being held for experimentation, or any kids being fed drugs, on my watch. As of now, all the Sectors are under NEST command. I want a full accounting of their past and present activities, and wherever necessary, I expect you to clean house. You'll have whatever resources you need to accomplish that. And, Director?"

"Yes, sir?"

"No one involved in this will disappear in order to cover it up."

"Yes, sir. I will need to bring in personnel to accomplish that, both in order to avoid compromising NEST's primary mission by diverting manpower, and to prevent any question of conflict of interest in the investigation."

Obama paused. "That won't be a problem. Resources will be made available to you. ─People, this is dry work. Would you like some coffee?"

"Yes, Mr. President, thank you."

The president made the request, and Jason appeared as if conjured, pushing a small cart with a coffee service and mugs. Being closest, Mearing played mother, then they all got back down to business.

Obama set his cup down on a coaster with the White House logo, and said very seriously, "If this gets out, it won't just hit the news, it will detonate. This office will be ground zero, and it won't matter what I knew or when I knew it. You give me the truth, Director. My first loyalty is to the American people and not this job, so you let me worry about the political ramifications."

"Sir, yes sir."

_Mr. President, __I__ know that if __I__ fail, __I__ bring down your administration. Thank you for the warning. _

And then the Small Snarky Voice Inside said, _Welcome to the big leagues, Charlotte. _

She came out of her head to hear, "Mr. Simmons, is there anything that I don't yet know about Sector 7's activities?"

"No, Mr. President, you know everything I know."

"Have you withheld any of this from Optimus Prime?"

"No, sir."

"Then that's one box we can check off. Director, are you going to be able to work with Quinn Braithwaite or do I need to reassign him?"

Mearing said, "I've worked with Mr. Braithwaite before at the CIA, Mr. President, and my experience of him has always been one of professionalism and excellence."

"Very well. In your experience, what does it mean when an agency goes dark, as S2 and S12 have?"

"Mr. President, there is no experience with this kind of thing. Agencies don't just disappear. There has been no contact with S2 for several weeks now, and finding out why will be this investigation's top priority. As for S12—the only reason I suspect that it existed is that we have an S11 and an S13. It is possible that, due to S13's purview, they were assigned that number instead of twelve, so there may never have been an S12. I don't believe we can afford to take that for granted, nor to assume that the sectors end at thirteen. We will never have one hundred percent certainty that all of them have been brought under the umbrella, sir."

"That can't stop us."

"No, Mr. President."

"Where are we right now with the other Sectors? Which ones are still around?"

"Sector Four's mission appears to have been a complete success, in that the grays are on their way home after we parted with them on good terms. Few of the agents are still living. At this point, I see no reason to go beyond sending someone to interview them. I would like to find out if the Cybertronians know anything about the grays, if they've had contact with them, and under what circumstances."

"Yes. See how they react to that and consult with me before telling them that we're studying the grays' drive technology."

"Yes, Mr. President. Sector Five...sir, to all indications their mission is to investigate possible incarnations of the Anti-Christ. They've been responsible for taking down some very bad guys, but whether any of their targets had any true religious significance is questionable at best. After seeing Diarwen shut down Sentinel's space bridge, however, I won't make a definitive statement that a religious significance is impossible."

"Director, as a man of faith, I wouldn't make that statement either. Is there any indication that the LSD guys, Sector Six, could still be active?"

"No, sir. Its director was convicted and jailed, along with most of the known agents. The youngest still living is sixty-eight. He and a handful of other survivors were transferred from prison directly to rest homes scattered around the country, and each one was told that he was the last survivor. I have no reason to believe there is anything still outstanding where S6 is concerned."

"Good."

"Sector 8 is still active, under the direction of Dr. James Collins. Doctor Collins is a highly respected epidemiologist who is currently investigating the recurrent allegations that AIDS is a man-made disease and that someone may be hiding a cure. In the past, S8 has been involved with several covert operations to stop outbreaks associated with bio-weapons research gone wrong, both in the US and abroad, and to cover up the real cause of those outbreaks."

"Director, have those coverups involved additional harm to the victims?"

"No, sir. In cases where there were civilian victims, Doctor Collins' method has been to blame the outbreak on laboratory accidents or transportation mishaps involving fictitious companies, which then settled out of court—fairly, as far as I've been able to find out. I'll need an accounting staff to audit those settlements and make sure that no one was cheated."

"You'll get them."

The nice thing about being President, Mearing thought, was that you had _staff_. Meetings were recorded twice, once digitally, once using voice-recognition software. A person checked the transcription against the recordings. Another person went through the transcript and ticked off action items. A third person organized and assigned the tasks. The President, and those he met with, could concentrate on the purpose of the meeting.

She said, "Sector 9's domain is the oil industry. Since the 1973 oil crisis, they have investigated the persistent rumors of suppression of technology, without success. However, since 9/11, their focus has shifted to protecting the US oil industry from terrorist attacks."

"Very successfully, it would seem."

"Yes, Mr. President. I'm extremely concerned about Sector 10. If any of these is going to blow up in our faces, I believe S10 is the one. We know they've been researching recombinant human DNA for the past twelve years. But so far I have been unable to determine whether these experiments led to viable embryos, and if they did, how far they went."

"Were any of my predecessors aware of that?"

"Not to my knowledge, sir."

"So we could have genetically engineered children out there, being raised under _any_ possible conditions."

"Yes, Mr. President. At this time, my operatives are tracing financial and telephone records, known associates, and other possible links to locate their laboratory facilities. Once we find that, we'll know more about what they've been doing."

"Don't lose them. I don't want someone capable of experimenting with the lives of children selling their skills to the highest bidder. If there are children involved, they'd _better_ have been treated well."

"Yes, sir."

"And that leaves us with the psychics."

"Sector 11 doesn't seem to be a problem. They are conducting scientific research into psychic phenomena. When the CIA's research into this kind of thing fell out of favor and became public, promising avenues of inquiry were moved to S11. Their success cases seem to have the same general extrasensory abilities as Diarwen or Adele Hempstead, but most are more specialized."

"Are they doing anything more than staring at cards—or goats?"

The only George Clooney fan in the room grinned. Then Mearing said, "Yes, sir, they have acted as police psychics, and contributed to the capture of several fugitives. More importantly, it was one of their people who warned the FBI of the plot to release chlorine gas in Los Angeles two years ago."

"Get them to help you solve some of these other cases."

"Yes, Mr. President."

"Keep me up to date."

"Absolutely, sir."

"Mr. Simmons, what's the word from your doctors?"

"More physical therapy, sir. As soon as I hit their next milestone, they're going to start me walking with a brace."

"That's good news. Good luck."

"Thank you, sir."

When the President stood, Mearing and McKenna did as well. McKenna said, "Thank you, Mr. President," and they left the Oval Office.

Obama looked at the papers one more time, before locking them in a desk drawer. As if giant robots from outer space weren't enough! He picked up the phone. "What's next, Mrs. Lassiter?"

"Mr. President, the Russian ambassador..."

End Chapter 12


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Disclaimers in Chapter 1

Sam closed his suitcase. "Carly, are you sure you don't need anything else done around here before I fly out to DC? Moved, or unpacked, or, or-"

His bride kissed him. "All I need is for you and Bumblebee to be careful. Something has Mearing upset, and I don't think that she upsets easily."

"I'm training in data analysis, Carly. I probably won't leave my office."

"And yet, things never seem to work out that way." Her dimples appeared.

"I'll be careful," he promised. They shared a last embrace, a lingering kiss goodbye.

He went out to Bee, and saw a crowd of bots and humans were gathered on the runway two streets over. He asked his guardian, "What's all that about?"

Bee's radio played, "Off we go, into the wild blue yonder..."

Sam gave his suitcase and carry-on to Bee. As the scout subspaced the bags, they watched a red, white and blue ultralight take off, circle the field, and touch down. Then it did another touch and go, this time accompanied by another plane, blue and white—wobbly, tentative, unsure, but _flying. _There were screams and cheers from the onlookers as the second plane leveled off, and banked around.

The red, white and blue plane came in for a perfectly smooth three-point landing. The blue and white one bounced, then dropped to all three wheels and slowed down.

The racket sounded like the _Spirit of St. Louis_ had just crossed the Atlantic.

Bee got in on the act with a loud horn blast, then drove off toward Nellis and the plane that would carry them to DC.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Diarwen stood next to Optimus' alt form, watching Skysong learn to fly all over again. After a few rounds of touch and go, her brothers were allowed to join Skysong and Parker in the air.

And if ever you wanted to contrast the definition of "pilot" with that of "flier," she knew, you could watch Skysong catching up to her brothers. If you wanted the definition of "love," you could watch them wait for her.

Parker waggled her wings, and talked them all into trying an Air Force formation.

To begin with, it was less "ragged" than "chaotic." But a few minutes later the boys had been up enough to settle in, and Skysong was out-of-the-gate perfect at formation flying.

Gradually, her brothers assumed their position relative to the little plane, which never varied its distance and direction from Parker's.

After Ratchet's allowed thirty minutes in the air, Parker would come down white as a sheet and say, "Those little maniacs! Did you know that they think 'sixty meters apart' doesn't mean 'wingtip to wingtip,' it means 'spark to spark'?"

Barricade set Skysong's ultralight down next to Parker's and said anxiously, "So you won't go flying with them again?"

"Oh, Barricade. Please, please request me. You cannot know how much joy that gave me."

He looked down at her, and then, improbably, smiled. "Return on investment, Doc."

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Flying demonstration over, Optimus, Ironhide, both sets of twins, and six Hummers full of NEST personnel went to the proving grounds. Mirage and the Sisters went part way with them, but turned off to patrol.

Que and Burnout were surveying a site for more housing. They had thought of building into the side of a cliff, if the rock turned out to be suitable for that—it was really the only way to beat the heat.

Killstrike and the gestalt were building a road already slated for that general area, whether the cliff-dwelling idea worked out or not. His clan bonds with the ex-'Cons were new and still tentative. Optimus got little from them other than their location and a generalized contentment.

That contentment was good news. The bond, still new, would deepen over time.

What did bother him was that he felt just as distant from Ratchet.

Jolt acknowledged his presence in the bond. The trine reached back to him, all innocent eagerness. Jazz returned a warm greeting, Brains and Wheelie as well. Even Barricade sent glyphs of startled respect—apparently Megatron had never used clan bonds to check on his people and make sure everyone was all right. The Autobots took pings like that, from Prime, cohort, or anyone else, for granted.

At one time Ratchet would have welcomed Optimus, and made some grumpy remark about frontliners beating each other halfway to the Pit and back, making more work for him. Now there was a scant acknowledgment, then the medic screened the link.

Optimus knew Ratchet would claim patient privacy, if he said anything. But when the patient in question was actively teasing at the clan bond like a kitten teased at string, that excuse fell a little flat.

Still, it was Ratchet's right, and quite possibly his professional obligation, to distance himself. Sadly, Optimus sent only the paired glyph that answered the medic's acknowledgment, then reluctantly screened from his side as well, respecting Ratchet's need for space and time. He would not intrude again until Ratchet indicated that he was welcome to do so.

By then, they had reached the proving grounds. Ironhide was teaching the NEST explosives experts to find and disarm various kinds of Cybertronian mines.

Lennox suspected that some of the 'Cons might join human criminal organizations. They split into two teams, developing tactics for use against mixed groups of opponents—something that previously only the 'Cons had needed to worry about. Having humans take cover behind the bots' ankles to shoot at each other complicated the battle.

One of Ironhide's mines went off. The mines themselves were relatively harmless dye bombs, but they did have a small charge in them—enough to propel a rock, which hit Diarwen in the stomach. The impact knocked the air out of her, but did no further damage.

Then she looked more closely. A chain mail link had snapped.

That one had been repaired before, and this time it had broken into three pieces.

She pocketed them; mithril was not to be wasted. But to repair her chain shirt, she would have to remove a link from the bottom.

Optimus asked her, "Are you all right?"

"Yes, I am fine. My gambeson took most of it."

"Sorry," Ironhide said. "I thought I threw all the rocks out, but I guess I missed one."

Diarwen shook her head. "It simply added a touch of realism," she joked, and took a long pull from her canteen. They went back to the exercise.

That evening, she sat on the back step of her apartment building to repair her chain mail. It was made with a decorative zigzag border, which allowed for many extra rings to repair broken ones, and they did not break that often. Still, it was a reminder that she was out of mithril arrowheads entirely, and if her sword or knife blade broke, she could not replace either.

She took the broken link over to the commons and looked around for Wheeljack. After a moment, she spotted him in a corner with Chip, Glen and Maggie.

"Que, have you a moment?"

"Of course. What do you need?"

"More of this," she replied, holding the pieces of the broken link out on the palm of her hand for the inventor to take.

He took the tiny bits with surprising delicacy for one so large, and scanned them. "This is a ring from your armor."

"Yes. It was repaired once before, you see, and when it was hit again today it shattered."

"On first glance I thought it might be titanium, but while it has similarities, it isn't. In fact, I cannot identify it."

"It is mithril, also known as true silver or star silver, in Tir nan Og from whence it came. It does not exist naturally in this world, but when there was regular trade through the portal, a great deal of it was brought here. It is light and strong, resistant to elemental fire, and easily enchanted. All of those qualities made it extremely valuable to the Sidhe. When my people fled, they took most of what they had back home with them. My arrowheads have been lost in combat with the Decepticons. My real concern, though, is that I might break one of my blades. If that happened I would be unable to replace it."

"I see. So, what you need is not mithril, but an adequate substitute."

"Yes."

"May I keep this for analysis?"

"Yes, of course."

"Of easily obtainable metals, titanium is a possible substitute. It is not a ferrous metal, so it should be safe for you to touch. But it would not be suitable for use with your flame abilities, as it loses strength at high temperatures."

Diarwen nodded. "That's a possibility, of course, as I cannot draw upon Fire at the moment anyway."

"Let me work on it for a while, Diarwen. I may be able to come up with something better."

"Thank you."

"Not at all. Will you stay for a while?"

The Sidhe smiled in genuine appreciation of the invitation, but she had overheard some of their conversation as she approached, and computerese was not a language in which she was fluent. "I will leave you to your discussion, my friends, as I am sure I would understand very little of it. Good night."

Chip Chase said, "Aw, come on, darlin'. Bring your little tiny ass over here and sit down with us."

He was suddenly aware of the heat behind those gray eyes, as Diarwen slid them to him and examined him like a side of beef. He flushed. Not even Jerk Armor, Grade One, could stand up to a Sidhe. Diarwen said, without the trace of a smile, "If that is southern charm, Chip, it would be best if you reserved it for someone else."

Maggie and Glen snickered at Chip's little crash-and-burn.

Que looked at all of them and blinked his optics, once. He did not understand that conversation at all.

Diarwen, for her part, simply nodded to the rest of them, saying, "Good night, rest well."

She opened her door to discover that a bookshelf had fallen, scattering books and papers and the odd datapad. She hung up her BDU jacket then picked up the mess, stacking everything on a chair until she could repair the shelf.

It had been put up with steel screws, which she discovered when she fished one out from under the bed. She dropped it with a yelp and a curse, and stuck her hand under the faucet for a moment. Some herbal ointment and a band-aid later, armed with a dishrag, she went hunting for the offending screw, which of course had skittered back under the bed.

In doing so, she came nose to nose with a picture in a magazine that had found its way under there as well.

She retrieved the screw, carefully using the dishrag this time, put it in the trash can, and swept out a few dust bunnies. Then she picked up the magazine.

It was open to an article that she had read a little while ago, on the finding of the tomb of an ancient Irish "princess."

On first reading, she had laughed at archaeologists' assumptions. She had known that woman, not a princess but the chief of her tribe and very nearly High Queen, and a more dangerous enemy on or off the battlefield Diarwen had never met. Historians were arguing about whose wife and mother she had been! While in her heyday, she'd had four husbands, and a covey of warriors vying to be number five. She'd also popped out fifteen or twenty children, most of them in war camps.

Diarwen had met her through service as a courier from Titania to the courts of Irish royalty. The "princess" had a Sidhe grandmother, who had bequeathed to her long life for one of mostly human blood—she was nearly two hundred and surrounded by a tribe of her own descendents when she passed.

Her grieving folk had buried her with a treasure trove. Titania's contribution had been a lovely gold brooch in the shape of a bird, whose wing feathers were made of mithril.

For that matter, Diarwen realized suddenly, mithril weapons and armor had sometimes made their way into the hands of Irish nobles in those long-ago days—a gift here, a dowry there—and they had still to exist somewhere. Some might be available in antique shops or estate sales; Diarwen was not willing to consider museum treasures.

Would it be worth a trip home to see what she could find? She might be able to start in New York City's pawn and antique shops...the city had had an influx of Irish immigration after 1845. Or perhaps she would end her search there, if it were without fruit in Ireland.

She put the magazine on the chair with the other things, and took a good look at the broken shelf to account for all the screws; she had no wish to run one into her bare foot in the middle of the night.

The next day she spoke to Optimus and Lennox about her intentions. Both of them agreed that it was a good idea, and wished her luck.

The upshot was that Optimus rolled to a stop at Nellis, where Diarwen would wait for the next seat her clearance entitled her to. Destination: RAF Mildenhall. The base was near Suffolk, England, and from there she could find her own way to Ireland.

He did not want her to go. It was necessary, Optimus knew that, and he would say no word to dissuade her. Still: he did not want her to go.

There seemed, with Diarwen, always to be one more thing to talk about: Skysong, his own training, the hundred and four amusing things the Trine did on a daily basis, hopes, fears, the future.

When they stopped, Diarwen had to leave as quickly as she could; a seat might come up and be gone within seconds. "I thank you, my friend," she said, and got out.

"A safe journey, and swift return," he offered.

Her hand lingered on his door for a long moment before she left him to join the crowd of military personnel and dependents.

He waited until he could no longer pick out her field among them before he put up his holoform, and drove back to base alone.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Sector 13's Washington office appeared to be one brownstone among many others on a quiet, shady street. A small bronze sign beside the door said only "Braithwaite Associates." Most of the neighbors thought it was a law office, or possibly an accounting firm, if they thought of it at all. They characterized it as "Possibly mysterious, but much more likely to be uninteresting."

Mearing knocked at the plain wood door. A car passed by, followed by three children and their nanny out walking an Akita.

When the street and sidewalk were empty, the door swung open on its own. Mearing and Li stepped into a hallway that looked Victorian in every way, right down to the gas lights.

An older woman wearing a skirt and a lace-collared blouse stepped out of one of the rooms and smiled. "Director Mearing. Right this way, Mr. Braithwaite is expecting you."

Mearing thought, _Of course he is._ They followed the secretary to the door at the end of the hall. The only open door they passed allowed them a glimpse into a library.

The lady tapped on the door at the end of the hall, then peered inside. "Mr. Braithwaite, Director Mearing is here to see you."

He stood as they entered.

Braithwaite said, "Director. It's been a long time. Congratulations on your promotion."

"Thank you. It has been a long time, hasn't it? Myanmar, back when it was still Burma, I believe," she replied, shaking hands. "You're looking well."

"Thank you, so are you. Yes, Myanmar. That was an interesting three days, I must say. Please, have a seat." They took the indicated comfortable red velvet sofa. Braithwaite sat on a straight chair.

A silver tea set waited on a side table. The lady who had shown them in, apparently Braithwaite's secretary, attended to that. When each of them had been supplied with a proper cuppa and a biscuit, she withdrew and shut the door behind her.

"I wondered what you were doing when they told me you'd left the Company. Retirement didn't seem to suit you."

"As you see, I've been somewhat busier than you were led to believe."

"Yes."

"There's a saying, I believe. _If it ain't broke, don't fix it._ Sector 13 is not _broke._"

"Certainly not, Quinn. You've done an excellent job here. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for all the other Sectors. The President had good reason to put everything under NEST's aegis. I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news but Sector 13 and NEST are going to be quite busy cleaning up other people's messes for a while.

"The good news is that if you ever run across something else on the level of Sufri, you'll have reinforcements immediately available. Likewise, your assistance will be invaluable when other sectors' investigations fall within your areas of expertise."

Braithwaite leaned forward. "Sector 13's mission, even before we were officially known as S13, has always been as much to protect and assist those whose abilities are beyond the ordinary as to deal with the criminals among them. I need to know right now if that has changed."

"It has not," Mearing said, making eye contact. "The President was very, very clear on that point with me. You and I have had our professional differences, our rivalries, over the years. But we have always served with honor, and that is not going to change."

"Are you going to handle this like a Homeland Security situation?"

"In that I mean to coordinate all the Sectors, and to foster cooperation against threats too large for any one Sector to handle, yes. That means that due to the actions of other Sectors, I need to maintain a stricter oversight, so I will also need to see your reports."

"I'll see to it that they're made available to you," Braithwaite replied.

"Thank you."

"How do you want my people involved with the clean-up efforts at the other sectors?"

"Investigators are being brought in from outside. What happens after that will depend on their initial reports." She paused, and set down the delicate teacup on its fragile, beautiful saucer. "Let me be very clear with you. Your people are not accused of wrongdoing so far as I know. But Sector 13 too must be subject to these investigations."

"We will cooperate fully."

She nodded. "Thank you. For now, I believe the best thing is to continue with your work as you have been, and keep me apprised."

"Of course," he said, with the first genuine smile Charlotte had ever seen on Braithwaite's face. "It's a pleasure to be working with you again, Director."

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Beaverton, Oregon was a quiet suburb of Portland, ten minutes west of the city, with a nature park and a golf course in between. Phil Esterbrook had served his tour in Iraq and come home to a job as a letter carrier. He put up with a lot of bad "going postal" jokes, but the fact was, he liked the work. All the walking kept him in shape. It beat a desk job, trapped in an office all day, hands down.

He knew the people on his route, and the worst thing he had to worry about from day to day was whether Mrs. Stevens had remembered to put her chihuahua in the house if it was a sunny day. She never let him out if it even hinted of rain, and since it was Portland, that wasn't a very common occurrence.

Saturdays, like this one, were his favorite. His bag was lighter, for one thing, and for another, more people were out and around.

Except in the industrial parks. They generally pulled in the sidewalks on Friday and were ghost towns until Monday morning brought out the grouchy, coffee-deprived wage slaves to put in another forty hours.

He usually took the mail in and gave it, all in a bunch, to the receptionists, rather than stuff things through the mail slot one at a time. But on Saturdays, the offices were closed. There was occasionally a car in a parking lot, as people caught up on work or had a training day—but the business office itself was rarely open.

Premium Software was no different. He wasn't surprised to see some cars in the parking lot. Computer geeks made jokes about being chained to their desks, and he wouldn't have been surprised to find out that was true. They worked long hours here. The office, however, was locked, as he expected on Saturday.

Phil put their mail through the slot and heard it fall into the box. He shrugged and went on. There were lots more gray buildings identical to that one on his route, and most of them had a few envelopes or supply catalogs to be put through similar mail slots.

He didn't think anything more about Premium Software until he returned on a rainy Monday.

The same cars were in the lot. In Iraq, he had learned to pay close attention to cars that stayed in the same spot longer than usual. Even now, he wouldn't walk too close to a parked car.

The lights at Premium Software were still off, and the door, locked. He looked through the mail slot—the envelopes from Saturday were still there.

This wasn't right. Places went out of business—but when they did, there were signs on the door informing people of that fact—or at least a contact number.

Phil detached the can of pepper spray from his mailbag and went around to the side entrance.

There was a plain metal fire door there, employees came out here to smoke or take a shortcut to the bus stop. Therefore, against company regulations, it was often unlocked, as he found it today. He opened the door and called, "Mail carrier! Anyone here?"

His voice echoed in the silent building. Listening carefully, all he could hear was the quiet hum of computers still running.

Most companies were environmentally conscious—and conscious enough of their electric bills—to turn off or hibernate unused computers when they were closed.

Then he smelled something that he recognized all too well.

Death.

It wasn't strong, in an air conditioned office building, not like in the hot, dusty streets of Baghdad. But he knew that smell.

Holding tighter to the can of pepper spray—wishing it was his sidearm—he reached left handed for his cell phone and called the police. Then, because he thought about someone lying in there helpless, injured, in pain all weekend with no one to help them, Phil went inside, ignoring the police dispatcher's orders to the contrary.

He didn't want to get shot by an overeager rookie cop, so he kept up a running commentary of where he was and what he was doing. The break room and a supply closet were clear.

There was a large room full of computers and peripherals, work stations for twelve programmers.

In that room, eight people were sprawled across their keyboards or crumpled by their desks. When he reported that to the dispatcher, she had him check for signs of life, and when he found all of them several days dead, she told him in no uncertain terms to go outside and wait for the police. This time, he obeyed.

Each of the dead had two burns on their foreheads, the size of quarters. And each one of them looked horrified.

Phil had seen a lot of things in Iraq, and a lot of dead bodies, and a lot of awful ways for dead bodies to get that way. He had _never_ seen that look frozen on the face of a corpse before.

Soon, the parking lot filled with police cars, and officers poured into the building. One of them took Phil aside to get his statement. Eventually, a pair of detectives also came over to question him. Another mail carrier collected Phil's bag and took over his route.

The coroner's office arrived, and with them, the CSI team.

Reporters started to gather, taking pictures of the police and unsuccessfully angling for interviews.

But there were no ambulances with flashing lights and screaming sirens, no rush to the emergency room, only grim faces doing their job.

By nightfall, there were speculations of a workplace massacre, or another Heaven's Gate cult. Since there were no other marks on the body besides the forehead burns, poisoning—either murder or suicide—was the main area of speculation. But then other tragedies took over the headlines, and in the lack of any more news about what had happened, the deaths at Premium Software dropped off the radar.

But then, NEST got word of it.

(To be continued in A Year in the Life of Optimus Prime: Three)

The End


End file.
